Retreat Act I: Occupation
by Andreas K N
Summary: Harry has been pulled out of Hogwarts, and Draco finds his heart no longer in his insults. Meanwhile, an ancient force moves to reclaim the magic of Hogwarts. Hermione catches the first whiff of death while Ron stumbles over badgers and broken bodies. HD
1. Moste Potente Monitor

**Beta:** Mishty, Bleachedclouds, Saladbats, Penguin 

**_Retreat_**  
ACT I  
O C C U P A T I O N

_Get lost, Potter!_

Thinking it just wasn't the same. And talking to himself was out of the question.

Besides, he had given up on listening to himself long ago.

_Get lost, Potter!_

And he was.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER PULLED OUT OF HOGWARTS**__

HOGSMEADE - **Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, has been pulled out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by his Muggle legal guardians.** This was announced yesterday at the annual Sorting Ceremony. Prof. Minerva McGonagall, school headmistress, has declined to comment on the matter. Meanwhile, the shocking news has increased animosity towards Muggle society in the infected political debate on Wizard/Muggle relations.

"This is nothing short of a disgrace," says Walter White of the Ministry of Magic, "It is yet another example of why Muggles should not be given any kind of influence over wizarding affairs, even if these Dursley people are the boy's legal guardians. Legal by _whose_ laws, I ask?"

White is referring to Vernon and Petunia Dursley, the Muggles given custody of Harry Potter after the tragic death of James Potter and his wife Lily, Mrs Dursley's sister.

Long known to despise everything magical, the Dursleys reportedly decided to terminate Potter's education when an unnamed wizard lawyer informed them of their right to do so. He also, allegedly, pointed the Dursleys in the direction of a place that cannot be found by magical means, which appears to be their nephew's current place of residence. 

Claiming to have acted purely in the best interest of their young ward, the Dursleys have refused to even hint at the present location of the Boy Who Lived to avoid setting journalists and the paparazzi on his trail.

Cont. on p.3...

* * *

**1. Moste Potente Monitor**

'Get lost Weasel!' Draco Malfoy sneered at the fired-up redhead before him. 'Your hair,' he paused, '_offends _me.'

But the sneer was just veneer. Behind the mask, Draco heaved a silent sigh. His _heart_ just wasn't in the insults anymore. Where it _was_, he didn't know. Missing without a trace; probably partying the night away somewhere warm and sunny, in the company of the Patience that had left him years before. And as for warm and sunny, one didn't have to look further than the lively Hogwarts lawns to find that. A warmly welcoming late summer had embraced their seventh-year return to Hogwarts. But, sadly, Draco could appreciate this only on an intellectual level. Emotionally, a biting and desolate winter followed his every grudging step.

That he couldn't figure out _why_ only made the chill reach that much deeper. It inspired a biting anger surging up from the dreary darkness which seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside his lithe, listless body.

Of course, Draco had been angry through most of his school life, but this was a new anger. The old anger had been burning, passionate, a bright light chasing away the darkness.

This _was_ the darkness.

Burning light could project itself into piercing glares and cutting words, slice through Gryffindor nobility and set fire to the anger of Harry Potter. With that anger lit, matching and opposing his own, a veritable inferno of passion would arise. Such passion fuelled him. The Dragon inside him needed it to keep its flame burning, the flame that chased away the darkness.

Now the darkness had returned. His Dragon lay curled up at the centre of an all-consuming void, withering away. No passion to feed on. No fire to breathe.

Alone.

But Draco refused to settle for this as the sole explanation for his chilly mood. His happiness could not depend on Harry Bloody Potter. After all, there was still Ron Weasley. The deep hatred between their families should have been enough to make Draco's blood boil. And yet it remained as cold as the heart that pumped it.

There was anger. Immense anger. Raging anger and utter loathing.

But no flame.

* * *

The only thing flaming was Ronald Weasley's hair, matched in intensity by his eyes as he glared at the insufferable prat before him. Waiting alongside sleazy Slytherins to be let into the Potions classroom, Ron rummaged through his brain for a suitable retort to Malfoy's slur.

'At least _I_ don't give dumb blonds a bad name, Malfoy. Some of that bleaching potion must have seeped into your brain if that's the best insult you can think of!' Ron looked pleased with himself.

'I don't bleach my hair, Weasley. You must be projecting your own desire to eradicate natural hair colour onto me. I would of course have felt the same had I been unfortunate enough to be born a flaming Weasley.'

'As opposed to just flaming?' said Hermione Granger, making her first contribution to this particular Malfoy-Weasley War of Weak Wits.

Draco and Ron turned to stare at her. They chorused a baffled '_What?'_, and spun back to glare at each other, both making it perfectly clear there would be no further verbal cooperation over this particular border of dislike.

'Too much study muddle your brain, Mudblood?'

'Don't you worry your pretty little head—' said Hermione, moving to touch Malfoy's hair. The blond lurched back, a look of horror marring his usually so perfectly controlled features. '—_hair_ about that, Malfoy, dear.'

Retreating still further to evade the advancing hand, Draco collided with Gregory Goyle (busy perfecting his habitual standing-behind-Malfoy-n-lookin-tough pose). Then, bumping his head against Goyle's chin, Draco tripped over his own feet while trying to side-step this additional threat to his carefully styled hair. Which left an uncharacteristically stunned Draco supported by a characteristically baffled Goyle and the rest of the students goggling at Hermione as she swept past them into the classroom.

These extravagant changes in Granger's behaviour – growing ever more apparent since the start of term – were frankly starting to get on everyone's nerves. If you couldn't predict Hermione Granger, resident genius and library patron, what _could_ you predict?

These were, indeed, troubling times.

Draco straightened his robes, stood up with as regal an air as he could muster, and turned to glare at Granger's retreating backside, upon which Ron Weasley's goggling gaze was already fixated.

The two boys managed a simultaneous 'What the—?' before resuming the glaring contest they had previously abandoned, both silently daring the other to echo _his_ words just _one_ more time. But the next words came from a different direction altogether as a deep and commanding voice boomed from inside the classroom: '_Mr Malfoy, Mr Weasley_ - should you feel inclined to start some poor excuse for a boys' choir, please do so in your spare time!'

Not one to question the authority of his favourite teacher, Draco sneered once more at Weasley and stalked into the classroom, robes billowing and Crabbe and Goyle bumbling behind.

* * *

As always, Ron sat next to Hermione in Potions, and as soon as Snape's attention was focused on preventing Pansy Parkinson from blowing up the premises, he leaned sideways, speaking in an urgent whisper.

'What was all _that_ about?'

'All that what?' murmured Hermione, perusing her notes.

'Malfoy's hair! You almost _touched_ it!'

'_Almost_, yes. Which proved my point.'

'What point?'

She sighed, pointedly. 'Currently, it seems to be _"Ron Weasley is incredibly dense"..._'

'You didn't answer my question! Why would you want to _touch_ Malfoy's hair?' Ron asked, jealousy in his voice, and flushed a deep red at the 'dense' quip.

Hermione moved as if to whisper in his ear, yet merely leaned over to scribble something on his parchment. _'You got that wrong. It's supposed to be two drops, not three. Honestly, Ron, pay attention.'_

Ron found it hard to pay attention to anything but the way Hermione's hair tickled his chin, and the sweet scent of roses invading his nose.

'Mr Weasley, Miss Granger, please refrain from cuddling in my classroom.'

Cuddling ceased, as did talking.

* * *

Not that any real cuddling ever occurred, in class or elsewhere. Hermione bitterly thought of it as _the_ _Ron Situation_. A Situation grown from infatuation through expectation, frustration and now, finally, desperation.

She'd sowed the ground with hints, watched them grow to seductive innuendoes, rolled out the proverbial red carpet and then - _nothing_. In matters of the heart, Ron was so dense she'd begun to suspect he could be classified as a new and extremely heavy natural element, a great scientific discovery. Not that she cared much about any discovery save the one involving Ronald Weasley, Adorable Daft Redhead, daring to brave the uncharted straits of Wooing Hermione. It looked as if he would _never_ get around to asking her out, the way things were _not_ going.

Had she seen this Situation coming, _she_ would have been the one to pose the Question. But now things had reached a point where she felt she'd made it so abundantly clear she fancied Ron that approaching him _now_ would just seem desperate. After all, he mightn't be as interested as she'd thought. Maybe he was just curious: "_What would it be like to date one of your closest friends?_"

No, she couldn't ask him out. That path was behind her. If he said no, or broke up with her after just a few dates...

No. _No_. Better to wait.

Better to slowly approach the breaking point.

Better to...

Get away?

Scream?

Both?

Indeed, the _Ron Situation_ was becoming intolerable, but it was not, alas, the only one. Another _Situation_ weighing heavily, not only on her mind but quite often in her arms was the _School Situation_, complete with Heavy Textbooks galore.

The very idea of Hermione regarding her academic endeavours as a Situation in the same league as the Ron disaster was a strong indication that _something_ was rotten in the State of Granger. Something was also mouldering in her bookshelf, but she couldn't be bothered to find out what it was - and that was perhaps an even more pungent reminder of just how infected the whole business had become, when she didn't even take proper care of her precious books.

She feared she'd been saturated by the vast amounts of knowledge she'd devoured throughout her Hogwarts career. Half expecting to find _herself_ going mouldy next, she felt she'd somehow turned into an old woman at eighteen. And realising what was expected of her did nothing to brighten her mood. On leaving school, she might well be forced to fight a bloody war, either for the Ministry or for her friends, but she knew she would return to Hogwarts. _So_ much knowledge, _such_ a sucker for rules, and _such_ a deep desire to make others crave learning like she did. _Of course_ she would be offered a teaching position. _Naturally_, she would accept. Maybe out of a sense of obligation. After all, what else could the _Heiress of McGonagall_ do?

Not that they were actually _related_. Hermione was the heiress of _who_ and _what_ Professor Minerva McGonagall _was_, professionally and personally. Of course, it wasn't official, nor something the professor had even hinted at. Hermione had learnt it as she'd learnt most everything else - through the study of books.

Obscure books on Hogwarts history had revealed that it was traditional for teachers to pay extra attention to, and tutor, students in whom they saw the potential for filling the teaching position they would one day, inevitably, leave vacant. And Professor McGonagall had been paying particular attention to Hermione Granger since their very first year. It was all so obvious.

It was all so awfully apparent and Hermione felt like a shopkeeper's daughter, having no choice but to stay in the family business. Or a princess destined since birth to rule a country. However you looked at it, Hermione was due to remain a part of Hogwarts for as long as she lived. Somewhere along the line of overzealous studying, she'd lost control of her own destiny. And Hermione _craved_ control.

It frustrated her that even though she might choose a future as a Hogwarts teacher because she genuinely wanted it, the rest of the world would see her following a pre-paved path, becoming what they'd always known she'd become. No surprises there. Nothing surprising about predictable old Hermione Granger. Predictable and losing control, at the very same time. It angered her. If she was to lose control of her life, why couldn't she at least do it spectacularly, and not in that quiet, understated way everyone had come to associate with her?

Her favourite teacher saw Hermione Granger as her successor and Hermione found herself both flattered _and_ shattered by this fact. She knew her reaction was silly and illogical but this didn't make her any less upset, nor any less inclined to simply run away. The answer to this problem wasn't in any book (however obscure) and Hermione just didn't know what to do, or where to look.

Another who seemed to search for something unplottable was the mysterious Mr. Malfoy. And in keeping with the overall theme of her seventh year at Hogwarts, Hermione had a steadily expanding and rather disturbing folder in her mind labelled _The Draco Malfoy Situation_. Like its two siblings, this was a _Situation_ she'd have gladly done without, but one she couldn't ignore, not least because of its ties to that _Other Situation_, the _Big One_.

In the past, Hermione had viewed Draco Malfoy merely as an annoying school bully who simply wouldn't leave Harry alone. Late one evening, following the Sorting Ceremony, her viewpoint shifted - irrevocably. That evening, she'd started to take an interest in the person behind the façade.

Still a prefect (she'd turned down the Head Girl position, much to everyone's surprise), Hermione had walked alone down a deserted hallway that night when she'd heard unmistakable sounds of bullying up ahead. Hurrying forward, she'd heard the mocking voice of Draco Malfoy cut through the commotion, bringing it to a sudden stop.

'_QUIET_, _you mental toddlers_!'

Hermione slowed her steps. Malfoy was also a prefect – one known for his vicious attitude to others stepping in when he was Handling a Situation. He took great personal pride in being able to Handle Situations on his own. How ironic, Hermione would later reflect, that he'd prove so inept at handling his own.

Malfoy's voice was cold, drawling, and punishing. 'Just arrived at Hogwarts and already you've set out to prove you should be sent back home on the first train out of here! Is that what you _want_, you miserable little mongrels?'

Shifting into something more appropriate for covert surveillance, Hermione padded up to the corner of the hallway. She'd scant desire to disturb Malfoy, unless it became clear he _couldn't_ Handle the Situation, but she still needed to see what was happening.

Five first-year Slytherin boys were backing away from the towering figure of Malfoy, shaking their heads and muttering half-hearted excuses. Some steps behind the Slytherin prefect stood yet another Slytherin first-year, a young boy with tousled blond hair, robes rumpled and ripped, his eyes wide and lips trembling, books pressed against his chest.

Hermione cringed at how quickly she deduced why this young boy had come to be the object of the others' need to lash out – their need to bully, to assert themselves, to secure a permanent position within the male power hierarchy of Slytherin house. The boy was, bluntly put, pretty and timid in a traditionally feminine way. He was a sissy-boy. And that she'd classify him as such on first sight _deeply_ disturbed her feminist sensibilities. Her back arched in silent self-reproof.

Malfoy advanced, glaring at the frightened boys. Hermione shivered as she realised just how much he reminded her of Severus Snape at that moment; eyes cold and demanding, robes flowing around him like ghostly smoke from the pits of Hell, a suitably Snapish simile if ever there was one. And if there was anyone Professor Severus Snape paid special attention to, it was Draco Malfoy. Was _he_ the _Heir of Snape_? She hoped not.

At the time, she'd hoped he wasn't the _Heir of Snape_ because she didn't care for a future of working side by side with a bigot like Malfoy. But after that night, she hoped Malfoy wasn't _Heir of Snape_ for Malfoy's sake. Snape was a broken man, bitter and tormented. It seemed Malfoy was heading down that same path, and Hermione found herself wishing he'd find a brighter, lighter track to tread.

'I won't pull any points this time since, after all, you're Slytherins—'

Oh, Snape _would_ be proud.

'—however, I do suggest you make yourselves scarce before I turn you all into tangerine toads.'

In a matter of seconds, they'd made themselves severely scarce - not a toad, tangerine or otherwise, in sight.

So, this was how Draco Malfoy, Slytherin prefect, _handled_ situations. Simple bullying.

Effective? Yes.

Constructive? Hardly.

Hermione hissed in annoyance.

Malfoy turned to the shivering boy. Would he comfort him? Would he redeem himself by dealing more competently now that the bullies had been scared off? No, of course not. Malfoy was an utter ass - and at that very moment, he set out to prove her right.

'Oh, stop whimpering!' growled Malfoy, agitated and impatient, as though the boy's miserable state were a personal insult.

The boy stopped sniffling. Hermione fought an overwhelming urge to leap forward and claw Malfoy's tongue out.

'If you whimper, they win. If you cry, you only give them tears to feed on.' Malfoy crouched before the frightened boy, his voice lowering to just above a whisper. 'If you show yourself weak, they will pounce on you and pound you down, down, _down_ until you can't get up again.' He grabbed the boy's shoulders. 'They see weakness in who you are.' He enunciated his next words with careful precision. 'Your only chance is to hide.'

Malfoy got up, circling the first-year. The boy clutched his books tighter and tighter to his chest, mute with fear.

'Hide who you are. Hide in plain sight.'

In the shadows, Hermione agonised over whether to step in and take charge. Mesmerized by the scene enacted before her, she wanted to hear where Malfoy was headed with this strange soliloquy. A soliloquy that seemed strangely rehearsed, ruminated on, performed with an intense rapture she'd seldom seen in Malfoy. At least, not since—

'Strike before you're struck! Push first and have them push back! Trick, kick, and make. Them. _Lick._ Your. Boots! Gain the upper hand and _swat_ them like flies!'

Malfoy took a deep breath, staring into space. The boy sniffled. Malfoy whirled around to face the younger Slytherin, eyes ablaze.

'ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE PANSY?' He shoved the boy against the wall. The books thudded to the floor. Hermione crouched low, muscles taut, ready to attack at any further signs of abuse. But none seemed to be forthcoming. Malfoy bent down to stare at the boy and spoke in a calm, cold, steady voice. 'You're a Slytherin now. Be a right bastard and you will be revered. Be nice and they'll exploit your every weakness. Act like a complete bastard and you'll be all right. Acting - should come naturally.' His mouth twisted into what, in a different facial context, might have been called a smile.

For the first time, the boy found his voice. 'But I'm not... I can't...'

Malfoy shut his eyes, sighed, and opened them again. 'No, you're too much of a sissy-boy, aren't you?' His trademark sneer was answered by a scowl. 'Why did I even bother? You're nothing but a second-rate little ponce.' For the second time, he shoved the boy against the wall. But this time, the boy, tears of betrayal in his eyes, lunged at the prefect, arms flailing, clawing, beating.

'Bastard! Bastard! _Bastard_!'

Face blank, Malfoy stretched out his arm, pushing the boy back, effortlessly. 'True.' His voice had a strange, taunting sing-song quality to it. 'But what are _you_ going to do about it?'

Short arms made futile attempts to reach Malfoy's stony face.

'You can't do anything to me.' Malfoy thrust the boy backwards with such strength that the tiny first-year fell over, landing painfully on his books. Malfoy rose. 'Yes, I'm a bastard. Yes, you hate me.' He loomed over the younger boy. 'No, don't even _think_ about trying to get even with me. You _can't_. Get even with people your own age, if you can manage _that_, you little wimp.' And with that, he left.

Hermione watched as the boy gathered his books, muttering dark curses (all of them sounding mightily misplaced in the child's cherubic mouth). She wondered if she ought to try consoling the first-year but decided against it, certain that suddenly appearing at his side would not be helpful at this point.

She set off after Malfoy.

* * *

Malfoy was approaching the central stairwell when Hermione caught up with him. Seeing the stairs moving, she slowed down, expecting Malfoy to do the same, and prepared to give him a piece of her furious mind.

Malfoy, however, didn't seem inclined to stick around. Picking up his pace, he continued down the moving staircase. After a moment of disbelieving shock, Hermione scrambled after him. The staircase was in mid-swing when Malfoy reached the final step. Glancing down, he jumped off. Hermione hesitated but a second before she too made the leap, unwilling to lose track of her quarry.

Malfoy landed with catlike grace on yet another moving staircase. Hermione touched down silently a few steps behind him. Oblivious of his pursuer, Malfoy jumped onto the railing and slid downwards. His stealthy follower ran down the stairs behind him, cursing mentally. What was that git _doing_? Trying to _kill_ himself?

Should she give him a _push_?

Needing no added impetus, Malfoy sailed into the torch-lit emptiness, landing with Errol-like antigrace on the next staircase. Now, it was Malfoy's time to curse.

Whether due to Malfoy's mishap or common sense making a late and inappropriate appearance, Hermione faltered as she dashed down the final steps. The result was a poorly coordinated jump - not one of the leisurely leaps she was accustomed to performing during similar circumstances. Or rather, circumstances vaguely reminiscent of the current Malfoy-instigated madness.

Whatever the reason, Hermione not so much _sailed_ into the torch-lit emptiness as she paddled in a highly disordered and perplexed manner into a stretch of annoyingly empty air.

Survival instinct set in when her conscious mind decided to abandon her to fly off and perch on a reassuringly solid ledge. Sorting out her flailing extremities, Hermione used the foremost two to claw onto the final step of the moving staircase. Her body-abandoning mind watched, in horror, the body it was (if not physically then at least emotionally) attached to, being in danger of quickly becoming rather terminally uninhabitable due to its dangling above a very disagreeable precipice of the bloody near bottomless variety.

This time, Malfoy couldn't fail to notice her. And should he have turned spontaneously blind, he would have had to turn stone deaf not to notice the penetrating screech that had accompanied her impromptu acrobatics.

He leaned over the edge, peering down at her, eyebrows arched. 'Hel-lo?' He tilted his head to one side. 'Were you _following_ me?'

Reproachful yellow eyes glared up at him. _Do something, you utter git!_

'Need a hand?'

_No, I need a chunk of lead tied to my hind legs so that I'll leave a really_ BIG_ red stain. Honestly!_

Malfoy stretched out his arm to her.

_Finally!_

Not about to wait for a formal invitation, Hermione sank her claws into Malfoy's arm, inspiring him to pull her up with greatest expediency – not so much due to any acute anxiety about her safety as his being acutely aware of a pressing need to pry her off his aching arm.

Though somewhat reluctant to let go of the git's arm, Hermione soon found herself in Malfoy's lap with the Slytherin gazing down at her.

'I don't believe we've met, have we? That's— unusual. Crookshanks usually introduces me to all new arrivals…'

Hermione made a mental note to have a serious meow with Crookshanks once she got back to the Gryffindor Tower.

'…especially the ladies.' Malfoy smirked. 'But perhaps he's done you already.'

_Make that a very **loud** Meow._

Malfoy began to absentmindedly stroke Hermione's orange-brown fur, and she found herself, much to the chagrin of her newly returned Conscious Mind, purring and rubbing herself against his torso. Animal instinct told her this was the way to go with simian individuals when hungry (and her stomach and palate did at this point express rather a violent craving for _Consolation Eating_ to calm her frayed nerves).

Of course, Human Hermione would never stoop to such underhanded methods (manipulating Ron using her female charms didn't count) but _Cat _Hermione would use her _feline_ charms at the drop of a hat. Or, even better, at the drop of a lamb chop.

Professor McGonagall had, at the very start of Hermione's secret Animagus training, tried to explain to her the futility of attempting to suppress fundamental cat instincts, but Hermione had chosen to disbelieve her mentor, insisting on behaving like a responsible human being when in feline form. This decision had had several unfortunate results - one of them being constantly worrying about her apparent nakedness (did short fur _really_ count as proper clothing?).

But eventually, Hermione had embraced her catness, and these days she even enjoyed the occasional raw mouse between meals. On the other hand, it was things like that (the McMouse snack) that made her wonder if her embracing her catness wasn't really more a matter of the catness sinking its vicious claws into Human Hermione, purring happily as it pulled her into the murky depths of feline decadence. However, currently being of a feline disposition, she turned her attention back to the business at paw.

Food.

And Malfoy.

And food.

Possibly a combination. Malfoy optional. Though considering the way he stroked her head, she might be forced to reconsider that last bit.

Pressing into his hands and leaning back, she opened her eyes slowly - until the world came into focus again, at which point her eyes tried run off without her. Malfoy's face was distorted. It was upside down, of course, but beyond that, there was something _clearly not right_. It wasn't _Malfoy_. Fighting back an urge to run off in search of the boy (bigoted bastard that he was), she realigned her head to take a proper look at him. He was smiling at her. Not leering. Not smirking. _Smiling_. And it completely unbalanced her, despite anything people might say about superior cat balance. She felt dizzy. It was a _nice_ smile.

'Care for some food, ladycat?'

The deep rumbling noises rising from her bowels were highly embarrassing. Truthful, but embarrassing.

Expecting no more eloquent answer, Malfoy placed Hermione on the stairs, rose and walked off. Expecting her to follow him. Just like that. How very _Malfoy_.

Oddly enough, this was strangely reassuring after the shocking smile she'd just witnessed. Feeling reassured and starving, she followed him. Not that it had anything to do with eating, of course. She just wanted to get to the bottom of Malfoy's strange behaviour.

Right.

* * *

One thing Hermione did get to the bottom of was Hogwarts itself. Or to be more precise: the Hogwarts school kitchens.

The kitchen elves seemed unsurprised by Malfoy's late-night visit, quickly meeting his demands for food. Nor did they seem at all surprised by the fact that there was a cat accompanying him. In fact, one of the elves went as far as to comment on there not being _more_ cats. This particular elf was Dobby, old friend of Harry Potter's and former property of the Malfoy estate, and the comment earned him a pointed slap (slaps tend to be rather pointed when the person doing the slapping is handling large kitchen knives) by his wife, Winky. Such things were simply not commented on in front of the masters. It jus' wasn' right. Dobby obediently banged his head on the table, crying _Bad Dobby, Bad Dobby_; glancing towards Winky to see when she felt he might possibly have humiliated himself enough.

To Hermione's great surprise, it was Malfoy who decided that enough banging was enough banging and, quite frankly, this incessant banging should cease so that he could perhaps have his food served sometime before the next millennium, thank you very much.

Hermione wasn't sure if this should be considered a display of commendable human (even _humanitarian_, though that boggled the mind) qualities on Malfoy's part, or if it was simply yet another display of what a _Big Spoiled Brat_ he was.

She pondered this as a roasted salmon was placed before her on the table, at which point she ceased pondering and focused on devouring the delicious dead fish before it had any chance whatsoever to be suddenly resurrected and escape her food-deprived existence.

You just never knew what might happen in a place like this. For example, you never knew when one of the slimiest gits on the planet might ask you out (or, rather, down) for dinner, and you actually found yourself _accepting_ his offer.

Even if it _was_ with a meow.

* * *

Nothing more was said that night. Malfoy (unusually subdued) and Granger (unusually small and furry) ate their food in silence and, some considerable time later, parted ways in the main hall.

Nothing more was said. But the silence carried meaning. Nothing _needed_ to be said. After all, as far as Malfoy knew, Hermione's conversational skills were limited to purring and sounding like a rusty hinge in need of gratuitous oiling.

But unsaid _somethings_ floated around Malfoy's head like fireflies around a bright light at night. His mind seemed filled with so many disturbing thoughts that they flowed over and spread around him like ripples of confusion. Draco Malfoy, who always acted as if he owned the world and could be neither be bothered by or with anyone nor anything, was _confused_.

Of course, Ron had always claimed that Malfoy was disturbed, but what Hermione witnessed that night (and many nights thereafter) went deeper than surface sliminess and general gittishness. Malfoy had _Issues_, capital I. He was a mystery and Hermione liked mysteries. Which was not to say she liked _Malfoy_. After all, she _liked_ solving crosswords but she didn't feel obliged to be _nice_ to them afterwards.

In short, Hermione spent many a night with Draco Malfoy because he fascinated and intrigued her, like a puzzle waiting to get laid. Or - to avoid any lewd connotations - a crossword waiting to be solved.

Besides, he provided snacks.


	2. Deceptive Discourse

**2. Deceptive Discourse**

Language colours perception; it simplifies and solidifies the impressionistic sea of sensory perception whereon we drift with such a deplorable sense of direction. It paints the chaotic world onto a canvas small enough to fit inside our inadequate human minds, using simple strokes we recognise, words we know. Language powers the filing system of our memory: 'boxes' that way, 'foxes' somewhere else entirely (unless, of course, they're foxes in boxes, which would be filed under 'Animal Cruelty').

It is when we start naming things – individual things – that we run into trouble. A small, fluffy rabbit named _Brutus_ will always have that extra edge to it – a hint of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, when it is really too much of a vegetarian to be a wolf, and too much of a rabbit to be a sheep. (Too much of a rabbit, in fact, to be anything else, period. There's no readily available promotion plan within the animal kingdom, much to the dismay of the odd ambitious amoeba.)

When we add an individualising name to a thing already classified as being part of various general categories and subcategories, we always run the risk of creating a confusing mismatch (say, a rabbit with a name that suggests it might be inclined to stomp unsuspecting burglars to death) or just subtly shift our perception of – and attitude towards – the item in question.

Call a forest Forbidden and you will find a whole lot of murderous rabbits crowding people's perception of it. And while the Forbidden Forest was indisputably the home of highly dangerous creatures, it was not the Hell on Earth that its name had inspired in the minds of Hogwarts students for generations. For one thing, it was a huge forest. Some smaller sections of it were really rather nice, if you applied a bit of voluntary tunnel vision.

One of these less blatantly hostile parts was the sunlit trail down which Hogwarts half-giant gamekeeper Hagrid trotted, a small cat trailing behind him, one afternoon in late September 1997. 

~~~*~~~

Hermione kept her eyes closed for long, peaceful moments, opening them only when a hollow disturbed her balance or a stone decided to ambush one of her paws. The moss was soft and springy beneath her, a delicate mixture of deep-ranging moistness and sun-dried crunch. Forest scent – a rich mixture of fir, pine, and permeating biological antiquity – scurried up her nostrils and tickled her dozing mind, keeping her alert enough not to fall asleep on the plush green pillows of thick moss.

Hermione felt different about the Forbidden Forest as an Animagus. Names mattered not to the mind of a cat. It was all about perception: sound, smell, sight, the _feel_ of things. It was a forest to a cat; a forest carrying the scent of predators much higher up in the food chain than a common house cat, but still a forest. The trees were rarely dangerous, the moss even less so. No, cats did not care about names. Especially not _Forbidden_. 

Not that Hermione was truly a cat, nor truly human. In her cat form, she retained humanity; in her human form, catness. Her eyes, whatever shape or colour they happened to be, saw the world through a merged perspective. She was Animagus. There was no way of going back. And no desire to.

Though sometimes, happily hunting mice in the dead of night, she felt training as an Animagus was a deliberate step into insanity and split personality disorder.

The cat in her couldn't care less.

The cat in her also wanted to play with the tiny Bowtruckle resting in Hagrid's giant arms. As a cat Animagus, she had urges she did not have as a human. Ones she constantly had to suppress. Among them was a desire to play in a distressingly Slytherin manner with all things mouse-like. 

But she would not be playing with the young Bowtruckle. In fact, she wasn't even very interested in its Treeday, the pretence for her following Hagrid into the forest. She needed to talk to the half-giant away from the school, and when he was in an _emotional_ state. Which he certainly was by the time they reached their destination: a little clearing where a tiny young oak grew. 

Hagrid placed the excited Bowtruckle on the ground and the tiny man rushed for the tree, jumped onto a branch, and fell off. On his feet again, the Bowtruckle regarded the scrawny little tree with knobbled brow and then, making up its tiny mind, hugged the lithe stem tightly. _His_ tree now. Forever.

Hagrid sniffled and pulled out a dirty handkerchief. He watched the immobile, knobbly little man for a while and then turned around to find a human Hermione sitting on a tree-stump in the sun, licking her hands clean. (In front of Hagrid, she never tried to hide her animal instincts. After all, the man thought _monsters_ were adorable.)

'Isn' tha' jus' adorable, 'Mione?'

Hermione leaned sideways to look at the tree and its new guardian. It looked very much, she thought, as if the sapling had sprouted a large and deformed knob with a pair of disturbing little black eyes.

'Cute,' said Hermione.

~~~*~~~

'Do you think he'll be coming back?' Hermione asked as she strode alongside Hagrid back towards Hogwarts, 'Harry, I mean.'

'Oh,' said Hagrid, 'I s'pose he'll come back sooner or later.' 

Hagrid hadn't been very talkative on the subject of Harry Potter's absence from the school. Hermione could tell he was keeping secrets. And with surprising success.

Which meant they were _important_ – maybe even dangerous – secrets.

'But Dumbledore's looking for him, isn't he? And there isn't much Dumbledore can't do, is there?'

Hagrid beamed. 'No. Professor Dumbledore's a great man! Greatest wizard alive!'

'So he'll be bound to find Harry.' Hermione smiled.

'O'course! Don't ye worry, 'Mione!'

'And bring him back here pretty soon...'

Hagrid fell silent. The silence stretched out, following their soft footfalls on the moss.

'Surely,' said Hermione at last, 'he would bring Harry here as quickly as possible – if he could find him...'

'Dumbeldore'll find him!' Hagrid's faith in the former Headmaster was unshakable.

'I mean, there's Harry's education to think of. He could miss his NEWTs.'

'Dumbledore'll sort it all out, don't yeh worry.' Hagrid looked very worried.

'...miss out on a bright future.'

Hagrid stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face Hermione, bending down till he was on eyelevel with her. 'Professor Dumbledore knows wha' he's doin'.' He placed a massive hand on her shoulder, making her feet sink into the moss. 'Don' worry! He'll keep ye all safe, you mark my words. You, Ron, all of Hogwarts, and _Harry too_.'

Hermione smiled at him. 'Thank you.'

'Yeh're welcome.' Hagrid unfolded himself again and strode off. Hermione remained where she was. When the half-giant was almost out of earshot, she spoke up again.

'So, if Dumbledore thought Harry was better off where he is now, he'd have him stay there, then?'

Hagrid stopped abruptly, didn't turn around, sighed, and stalked off towards the castle.

Just as she had suspected.

Just as she had feared.

~~~*~~~

Conflict had crept upon their world like molten rock. After the initial explosion – the spark and subsequent eruption – when Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, had burst back from the Wizarding Underworld, everyone had expected a new War to begin. Many claimed it had, but many others felt that wars required a little more actual warring, a little more clashing of spells, a little more open propaganda, a little more gory headlines; in short, a little more _War_.

What they did get was terror, spreading from the resurrected Dark Lord like magma, unstoppable and utterly deadly. Forever flowing and destroying but never followed by the volcanic outbreak of violence they were all anticipating. And the wait was terror in itself; terror of a most destructive kind: The crumbling of spirits.

The Death Eaters did terror well. There were the quiet assassinations and the terrifyingly loud ones but none of them with the slightest trace of a return-to address. There were the disappearances of those held to be good and those who probably weren't. While the latter were not the ones the public mourned, they were the ones the authorities feared. Missing people posed a threat only if they added to the enemy's numbers. A good missing person was a dead missing person. The conflict brought out the worst everyone. If it was a war, it was a cold one – a disease causing frostbite of the soul.

Families not pure of blood were murdered, their homes burned to the ground; a traditional approach from ultra-conservatives serving a half-blood madman who sought to control a world he claimed had done him wrong. The Dark Mark was all the propaganda he needed now. Its meaning was painfully inscribed on the very soul of the Wizarding World.

In the deathly quiet of undead limbo, Tom Riddle had learnt that nothing could roar louder than cold, deathly silence.

~~~*~~~

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry held within its walls the very future of the Wizarding world, not only its children but also some of its greatest minds and most important research resources. It was also thought to be the safest place in Britain. Its wards were so complex and layered that the mere _incomprehensibility_ of them inspired an absolute faith in their _impenetrability_ in the minds of the general public. 

The wards, whose main objective was preventing Apparition within the school grounds, were so old that no one except Albus Dumbledore really knew what they were all for. (And why it was that _he_ seemed to know, no one knew either. But, strangely enough, this did not seem to bother anyone.)

With Dumbledore away from Hogwarts and other wards failing all over the magical world, the Ministry had seen fit to equip Hogwarts with extensive Auror protection. People had been _quite_ surprised to hear that Dumbledore (whom everyone acknowledged as the Master of Hogwarts even though he had been, for the time being, replaced as Headmaster) had not objected.

Not even a little bit.

~~~*~~~

The Aurors were meant to be unobtrusive watchmen. This meant they could be found watching people virtually everywhere except inside the bathrooms, though persistent rumours attributed this to an alleged shipment of invisibility cloaks. These rumours were mainly propagated by select portions of the male student population, for the questionable benefit of its female counterpart.

Even the classrooms were under near constant surveillance. In most cases, the Aurors were met with a frown, an occasional encouraging smile, or no acknowledgement at all from the teachers whose classrooms they were sent to monitor. But there was one classroom no one wanted to be assigned to, the classroom where everyone but the teacher was a student – and a vicious, despicable, time-wasting little mongrel at that.

Even highly trained and experienced Aurors got their years replaced with fears and their confidence twisted into incompetence as they entered the domain of Hogwarts Potions Professor, Severus Snape. This was why anyone who could pull, or even just slightly yank, any sort of rank sent their subordinates down to the dungeons to _'brush up on their Potions skills, life-long learning n'all that.'_

The poor sod currently pouring over his poor excuse for a potion (Snape's words) was Terence Higgins, twenty years of age and called Terry. Of course, in the presence of Severus Snape, he usually felt about two and was likely to be called Terrible. And it certainly didn't help that he had been crap at Potions the first time around (when Snape really had been his teacher and not just an uncooperative faculty member who would not allow ludicrous loitering in his classroom).

Terry sighed deeply (taking care not to _inhale_ deeply as he was of the firm opinion that his potion looked distinctly hostile and not in any way susceptible to sucking up). Thus focused on his randomly mutating concoction, Terry consistently failed to notice the many furtive glances of one Miss Granger.

It wasn't that Hermione had a crush on Terry. It was more a case of proving to herself that she could find men who were not called Ron Weasley romantically interesting rather than just nice to look at. It was her mind, not her hormones, she was worried about. What if she got it into her head that Ron was The One, and then couldn't get it out of there? Would she never find love? Would she be reduced to sleeping around and around the issue of a lasting relationship? Would she submerge herself in work? Would she be pretty? Would she be rich? _Que sera sera_?

No. She would keep her options open. She would have romance in her life regardless of Ron. After all, it wasn't called _Ronance_, was it? 

Now, there were many more attractive Aurors around (there were, of course, ranking-lists in all the girls' dorms) but Terry had not been chosen for his sex appeal. Which is not to say that he lacked one. It just wasn't an aggressive type of appeal. Terry was calm, intelligent, thoughtful, sometimes self-effacing, pretty in a decidedly non-threatening sort of way. And quite possibly gay. In short, the perfect object of Hermione's enterprising affections.

It also helped that Terry was often assigned to Gryffindor Tower when he wasn't wasting away in the dungeons like some tormented romance novel hero. Being one of the lowest ranking Aurors at Hogwarts, Terry was often Confined to Classroom during the day only to be rewarded for his perseverance by having to trudge to the very top of the Gryffindor Tower for night watch duty. Thus, he was always glad to see Hermione sneak out of the girls' dorm to greet him, and gladder still to see the cup of coffee she brought with her.

Hermione turned her gaze back to Ron and heaved a sigh at the sight of him. Ron was so much more real to her than Terry was or would ever, she conceded, be. She could go through the motions of looking for romance with Terry but when it came to Ron, the motions went through her. Her interest in Terry was but a poor reflection of her love for Ron. But reality often seems less threatening when seen through a dirty – even broken – mirror.

Hermione turned back to Terry and smiled. It was time to smash some mirrors and have some fun. 

With the noise of Snape's ranting filling the room, no one heard her purr. 

~~~*~~~

'I swear that bastard blames _us_ for Harry not being there for him to pester so he pesters us and poor Neville twice as much just because he's such a bloody—' Ron huffed and puffed and tried to find the perfect word for Professor Snape, '—BASTARD!'

'We all miss him,' Hermione said as the class swarmed away from the smoky Potions classroom to the accompaniment of Snape's yelling at Neville Longbottom to clean up that bloody mess _right now_.

'_Miss_ him? MISS him?' Ron stopped and spread his arms wide, unwittingly blocking the narrow passageway, 'Of course _I_ miss him, and you do too, and most people in the school, I should think, except _bloody Slytherins_,' there were hisses from behind him, 'but SNAPE? Snape doesn't _miss_ Harry! He _hates_ him! You'd think the bloody bastard would be HAPPY that Harry's gone! But NO, he has to go and blame US! He tries to blame EVERYTHING on us! I mean, if we COULD get Harry back, we WOULD!'

Hermione felt a headache coming on. If Ron COULD stop speaking in capital letters, he SHOULD. But before she had the chance to voice her complaint, Malfoy spoke up behind them. 

'Are you _quite_ done with your little performance, Weasley? People do have more important things to do than witness you being dramatic with neither style nor any semblance of wit.'

Before Hermione could stop him, Ron had spun around to face his foe. 'You really think highly of yourself, don't you, Malfoy?'

People sidled past the two verbal combatants on either side. It looked like it could be a drawn-out battle. Sadly, no time was scheduled for such delightful diversions.

'How could I not?'

'Think you're better than everyone else!'

'Certainly better than such a _poor_ excuse for a wizard as you.'

Ron sputtered, tried forming spiteful syllables, and lunged when all else failed. Malfoy smashed into the opposite wall. A beefy hand landed with surprising swiftness on Ron's shoulder, yanked him backwards and tossed him towards the wall opposite. Goyle proceeded to help steady Malfoy whilst Crabbe cracked his knuckles and glared.

Hermione shook her head.

Malfoy shook Goyle off his sleeve and stared long and hard before muttering, eyes dull: 'You really are less than nothing without Potter, aren't you, Weasley?'

Ron's jaw dropped. Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder.

'I don't know why I bother,' Malfoy said and turned to leave. He took a few steps, stopped, and spun around to scowl at Ron and Hermione. 'And Weasley, with friends of your calibre, it's no wonder the _Boy_ Wonder is still missing. You're all a bunch of incompetent do-gooders.'

Before Malfoy could turn around again, Hermione's calm and calculated voice sliced through the dank dungeon air. 'So, are you saying _you_ could find him then?'

'Granger, I don't _want_ to find him.'

'But you're saying you could if you _wanted_ to?' she went on, ignoring his icy stare, 'Maybe you're saying that Dark Arts could find him—'

'I don't dabble in the Dark Arts! You have no—'

'—since Dark Arts are probably what's keeping him away...' She left the suggestion dangling. Draco's father was a Death Eater. Draco more than _dabbled_ in the Dark Arts. She knew this. She knew he would take the bait.

There was a long silence. Ron stared at Hermione, wondering which way the cogwheels of her mind turned, if at all.

Malfoy raised chin and eyebrow and poured every ounce of his Malfoy pride into his words. 'I _could_ find him. But I _won't_.'

Hermione advanced on Malfoy, eyes aglow. 'Why won't you? Could it be,' she stopped a breath away from his face, 'that you're afraid of Harry? Afraid of finding him?'

'I – am _not_ – _afraid_ – of _Potter_.'

'Then why don't you find him? Prove that there's a reason you think so highly of yourself…'

'I don't need to _prove_ that, so why should I bother?'

'Because it does.'

'What?!' Malfoy's pale skin coloured. 'Make _sense_, Granger!'

'It _bothers you_.'

And with that, she swept past him. He had taken the bait.

She was sure of it.

~~~*~~~

Hermione was getting on Ron's nerves. She could tell.

'What is _up_ with you and Malfoy?' he demanded as they hurried to be late for the next class. 'Why tell him to find Harry? I mean, it's not as if he CAN, but, still, would you wish the first person Harry meets after – _whatever_ – is _Draco Malfoy_? They're _mortal enemies_!'

'A git and a good guy does not mortal enemies make.'

Ron managed but a baffled squeak before Hermione pushed open the door to the Transfiguration classroom, unleashing the disappointed glare of professor McGonagall.

~~~*~~~

Ron made a point of ignoring Hermione throughout the rest of the period, obviously hoping this would force out an explanation.

He would have no such luck.

She _couldn't_ explain to him. Not without revealing her secret Animagus status, something she was strictly forbidden to do.

She could not tell Ron that her nightly feline visits with Malfoy had revealed some things and hinted at others. Nor that she now knew for a fact that Malfoy concealed some of his magical powers in public to hide the fact that he had undergone extensive Dark Arts training. He also had access to a massive Dark Arts library and, although she had initially been reluctant to admit it, the brains to use it.

And he was obsessed with Harry Potter.

She wasn't sure just how, or how violent the obsession was, but it _was_ there – always. In some strange way, Malfoy seemed to crave the presence of Harry to achieve balance in his life. His reaction to Harry's absence was similar to that of Professor Snape, only many times worse and far more complex.

But what it all boiled down to was that Draco Malfoy had the resources and contacts to search for Harry in untried ways, and a damn good incentive for doing it.

All she had had to do was point it out to him.

It was up to him to do the rest.

~~~*~~~

The high grass waved slowly above him, framing the sky above, creating the illusion of a huge blue eye gazing down at him, twinkling. The way Professor Dumbledore's eyes so often did.

A searching eye. Just as his friends were probably searching for him at that very moment. Though perhaps they had already given up. Was he really worth all the effort?

He lay perfectly still, watching the sky darken and clouds of grey swept into view by a wind that forced the eye of heaven into a thin, intense slit. It was no longer the eye of a benevolent old wizard. It was _his_ eye.

Grey turned dazzling white as the first flash joined earth and sky. Thunder rolled. Soon, the tears would come.

The first heavy water-drops fell and washed away the salty liquid already on his cheeks. The rain soaked the land, turning the dirt into mud, making the grass heavy and bent as if in mourning.

And still he lay there. Ready to drown in a flood of tears.

Though, to be perfectly honest, it was rather a small and insignificant flood. He would have to lie there for a very long time, waiting to drown. And even then, the rain would probably have tired and moved on before the water level could rise above his knuckles. The only results were likely to be a dreadful cold and more mud-soaked clothes.

Harry Potter shook his head, rose from his puddle and went back to the mansion to do some washing up.

The rain kept falling but the tears had all dried up.

~~~*~~~

The storm reached Hogwarts late at night, observed only by nocturnal creatures and those who should be sleeping but couldn't, or simply wouldn't.

Draco stared out into the turmoil through the window of a dark hallway. A large black cat sat on the windowsill beside him.

'"Find him" they say,' Draco muttered, 'As if I care.' He sighed. 'I thought, I reallythought I would enjoy Potter's being gone. That little celebrity always got all the attention and around him _I_ was transformed into a – a _comic cardboard villain_.' He clenched his fists. 'And now – I am less than nothing without him around.' He slammed his fist on the windowsill, making the cat jump. '_Bastard_.'

The cat watched the young man turn away from the window with curious interest. Draco sighed and slid down to the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him. Outside, lightning struck. The cat's eyes gleamed. Thunder rolled. 

The cat purred. 

~~~*~~~

Weeks of bad weather followed the storm. It soaked Hogwarts and its residents, seeping into the very spirit of the school. It left both students and teachers dampened and weary, and none more so than Draco Malfoy.

Coming in a close second was Hermione Granger, her mood further dampened by the fact that she seemed to be the only one noticing Malfoy's strange behaviour. Not that she _cared_. Malfoy interested her merely as a Mystery, nothing more. A Malfoy Mystery begging to be solved.

Of course, her treacherous mind trotted happily along that same path of reasoning to reach the unwelcome conclusion that Malfoy was her Mystery Man, which could give people the wrong idea entirely. Not that she ever spoke about it. Not even to Ron. The dimwit.

Draco Malfoy, who had been withdrawn and moody the entire term, had distanced himself from everything and everyone so far as to become virtually unnoticeable. He drifted through the school hallways with a haunted, sometimes hunted, look on his face. A still studious spectre going about his business and making sure no one stepped into his. An echo of the attention-seeking brat he had been for the past six years. He was hiding something.

Hermione had no idea what this Something was. Her late-night snacks with Malfoy had ceased abruptly some weeks before, after some rough catfights with the new feline on the block had put her painfully off long nightly walks.

Malfoy was up to something, working on something. She hoped it had something to do with Harry. Someone needed to have a Plan, even if it was a dangerous, devious Slytherin Plan.

~~~*~~~

They sensed it before they could feel it. A Change was coming. The great Return was at hand.

Then they felt it, like a ripple in reality, like a tantalising wisp of sweet-smelling smoke. A wisp of Wizarding. The magic beckoned.

Then the Summoning began.


	3. Arrival

**3. Arrival**

But for the absence of Harry Potter, the Gryffindor table seemed to have time-warped back to when hardly a day went by without a heated discussion about Draco Malfoy or Quidditch or Slytherin sleaziness or . . . or any combination of those topics plus several of their closest relatives. Hermione could almost fill in the empty spaces where Harry's comments would have further underscored the indignant chorus of voices.

'_Of course_ he cheated! It's what Malfoy _does_!'

'_Dark magic_ probably.'

'Bloody cheating bastard!'

'Bloody show-off! Did you see him spin around on that Plasmabolt? I mean, a _metallic_ _broom_?'

'Only Malfoy would buy that—'

'Where'd he get it, anyway?'

'Promotional broom. Didn't even know those things could _fly_ – s'posed to be hanging in bloody windows, aren't they?'

'Expensive as hell, must be.'

'But _how_ did he cheat? Maybe he just _happened_ to see the Snitch—' 

'My salad is moving.'

'_Five minutes_ into the game?! Not bloody likely!'

'About as unlikely as Ron's salad moving.'

Everyone but Ron laughed. 'I'm telling you, it's _moving_! _Look_!'

Hermione _was_ looking, but not at Ron's salad. She observed Malfoy entering the Great Hall and felt the tug of the perceptual time warp grow stronger. This was not the Malfoy she had seen shuffling towards the Quidditch pitch earlier that day; certainly not the Malfoy she had been secretly trying to unravel that whole term. This was the old Malfoy, the centre of Slytherin attention, smirking, strutting, sweeping into the Hall like a white-hot torch of towering arrogance.

'GAH! It's a _slug_! There's a slug in my salad!'

'You're not belching slugs again, are you?' said Dean Thomas, sidling away from his frantic friend.

'I 'aven't even _touched_ it! It came with the salad! – I'm _glad_ I haven't touched it! I'm not _going_ to touch it!' Ron had developed a rather severe slug phobia since the Belching Incident in second year. He prodded the snail with his wand, ineffectually trying to spur it towards Dean's plate.

Malfoy was approaching. Hermione could see his eyebrows rising as he became aware of the Slug Commotion. Somehow he would turn it to his advantage. _This_ Malfoy always would.

Ron yelped and pulled at his wand. 'The slug is _sucking_ my wand!' It was, unfortunately, a magically mutated slug, with rather violent sucking reflexes.

This was the opening Malfoy had been waiting for, slowing his steps to saunter past their table. 'We do not wish to know the sick ways in which you play with your _wand_, Weasley.'

Ron paid him no heed, waving wand and slug furiously through the air. Suddenly, everyone decided to follow Dean's example, sidling rapidly away from Slugging Ron Weasley. When the slug finally lost its grip, it was poor Lavender Brown who happened to be sidling in quite the wrong place. 'GAAAH! _There's a slug between my legs_!'

Malfoy could not resist. 'Nor do we care to hear about your appalling sex-change endeavours, Miss Brown!'

'It's GROWING!'

'Yes, I do seem to have that effect on people…'

'Get it off! Get it off!'

'Use your hands, man!'

'GET IT OFF!'

'Anyone want to help Miss – sorry – _Mister_ Brown _get off_ so that we may continue our meal without further seedy sexual innuendo?'

At this, Malfoy, shooting his wit from a distance, sank into his seat at the Slytherin table. He appeared disinterested, but Hermione could see – having learnt to read Malfoy subtext with surprising skill – that underneath the mask lay simple, unadulterated pleasure. Draco Malfoy always hid behind masks, and one thing he concealed was his immense fascination with language, and the skill with which he could wield it as a weapon against the world. She had been given both a demonstration of his penchant for well-turned phrases and the key to unlocking his masks that very first night he took her to the kitchens. He had told the younger Slytherin to hide in plain sight, no doubt speaking from experience. His lyrics for _Weasley Is Our King_ in fifth year were an excellent example; he would never, could never, be seen to take pleasure in being linguistically creative for the sake of being so – for the sake of being a poet, a _pathetic artist_ – but he could display his skilful word-painting for the whole school to see under the pretext of being a mean, petty, bullying bastard. 

Malfoy was a master at draping himself in shrouds of deception, but Hermione had the claws to unseam them, layer after layer. Maybe, in time, she would find the real, naked core of Malfoy – if there were such thing to be found.

~~~*~~~

In a society of minorities, the largest and most vocal group tends to assume the role of majority and rule the rest, though its size may be insignificant compared to the society as a whole. Surprisingly enough, these things tend to go unnoticed for quite some time. Then comes the Revolution. Often featuring generous amounts of blood.

For Them, the Revolution had not yet come. And even then, they would be hard pressed to manage blood, possessing none unless they stole it from someone else first. Someone living, not merely existing. 

From a scientific viewpoint, _they_ didn't live – they _existed_ – if, that is, one subscribes to the traditional idea that life requires Biology. In these days of attempted Artificial Intelligence and the existential debate surrounding it, there are certainly scientist who would argue that They _are_ alive. However, what cannot be argued with is their lack of Biology.

Not that _they_ cared either way. They were feeling more alive than they had in centuries and that was all that mattered.

_Feeling_.

The Majority laid out the plan. Liberation was at hand. They could smell it.

Even without nasal Biology.

~~~*~~~

The Marauder's Map (courtesy of Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs) was good for a great many things. It was good for solving the mysteries of overly shrill and aesthetically challenged buildings and their animalistic occupants. It was good for monitoring the movements of people you wanted to find, and people you did not want finding you. It was good for finding your way through the most mysterious parts of Hogwarts (as opposed to the merely baffling and somewhat illogical parts that made up the rest of the castle) and it was good for wiping up smaller amounts of Butterbeer, spilt when trying to break one's table with one's depressed, drunk and not altogether together head.

Luckily, neither the table nor Ron Weasley's aching head broke on impact. Thus, no Weasley galleons (always, as a certain Slytherin would be quick to point out, in short supply) needed to be spent on reimbursing a heavy oak table, covering a medical bill, or the premature burial of the most inadvertently adventurous of all the Weasley boys. 

The Marauder's Map had, in fact, been made to withstand most anything – and was, furthermore, _specifically_ designed to effectively soak up Butterbeer, for reasons known only to Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot & Prongs, and a great many old patrons of Hogsmeade's _The Three Broomsticks_. And so, the table remained intact and the Map dried up nicely, something which couldn't be said for Ron Weasley's composure, or the tears coating his puffy cheeks.

The reason for this miserable state of depression was simple. Simple in the same way that a Rubik's Cube is simple in design but oh so hard to properly colour-code. Ron doubted he would be able to colour-code his way out of the miserable mess he had made of his – so far, purely hypothetical – love-life.

Red, the colour of love, the Gryffindor hue, yet also the colour of shame and embarrassment. And, let's not forget, the colour of hair, Weasley hair, poor hair, pauper's hue, a match penniless as few.

Blue, he was, that much was true. Red and blue, a purple hue, the longing love of _one_, not _two_.

Green waylaid him more often than not. Jealous, now, even of one he truly despised. She looked at him, that boy, that bastard, that pompous ass, almost as pretty as a lass. The green Slytherin who brought forth the blazing orange of burning hate, consuming the green, leaving

Black, depression, an urgent lack, a lack of love, of someone to hold him – to really love him – back.

Black.

And white. White as a blank page, an empty sheet, a paper not written, no hope for a grade. He had no academic ambition, no analysing mind. He had already, by pure accident mostly, become part of History, and yet he knew next to nothing about it. Professor Binns was such a bore. Hermione too, sometimes, but in a way that he had come to adore. But not when she asked (_What do YOU think_?) of him to be something more than a reluctant audience.

_Discussion_ – he couldn't do it. Not about that stuff. Quidditch History was okay, but the _Emancipation of the Eurkic Elves_?!

She made him feel stupid sometimes. Unintentionally, of course. But still, he often felt stupid these days, and not just because he hung out with _little Miss Know-It-All-Plus-Appendixes_. So many of his friends, and even more of his Hogwarts contemporaries had gone through some sort of intellectual growth-spurt. Many had taken a sudden interest in politics, war, and history. They lived in _interesting times_, they said. 

Ron had never viewed _interesting_ as a synonym to _dangerous_ before.

~~~*~~~

In the Gryffindor common room, the red hair of Ginny Weasley clashed with the deep red of the couch on which she was asleep. After an hour of Hermione's purposely boring monotone recital of less inspiring parts of _Hogwarts: A History_, Ginny's brain had finally given up on forced alertness while awaiting her brother's late-night return.

It wasn't that Ron was never out on his own, or that the women in his life were generally disposed to nervously wait up for the Ron in their life. _This_ night was different. This night, more than half of the Aurors posted at Hogwarts had been called away. That they were away meant they were needed urgently someplace else, and where Aurors were needed urgently was no place for anyone else to be. Rather, it was a place were those not of the Auror persuasion became urgently aware of their own mortality.

Ron was _someplace else_.

This was the reason for their anxiety. This was the reason Hermione had used a book to put Ginny to sleep, in a more sophisticated – if not necessarily _nicer_ – way than hitting her over the head with it. This was why, in the dead of night, a small cat of the _Granger_ breed padded across the shingle in front of the main entrance to where Terry had been placed on watch for the night.

She needed someone to talk to.

~~~*~~~

The scouts were in position, the warriors standing by, the collectors advancing, the Darkness on a steady approach, coming closer, commanding: _ATTACK_.

~~~*~~~

The fog lay on the land like a smothering quilt, a microscopic patchwork of water and air visible at a distance, providing invisible moist up close and personal, hindering sight and encouraging fright. There was a white lake floating above the black surface of another, like the insubstantial ghost of a loch trying to escape the monsters dwelling inside it and flee to cower amongst the clouds. But there were no clouds to cower in. The stars stared down upon the dampened land while the full moon set the mist aglow with its cold, white gaze.

Outlined by the silver backdrop of that pervasive mist stood Terry, all alone, hands in his pockets, clutching his wand. Anything could come through that mist, and not be seen until it was almost upon him. Of course, there were wards – but if they were foolproof, what were the Aurors for? Protection against fools?

Hermione stood still, silently watching Terry for a few moments, observing, evaluating, committing to memory, listing all the good points – all the points where he could compete with Ron. Terry was handsome, but rather short. Not that Hermione had anything against short men, per se. But she was rather tall herself, and maybe it would look odd, and Ron was rather tall but, of course, that was neither here nor there.

Terry was robust, well muscled. Well, that was certainly _nice_. Yet perhaps a bit too much muscle and width for that height. Ron had become rather muscular too of late (he was always around, she was bound to notice). But Ron was tall and lanky at the same time, which, on the whole, was also neither here nor there, though possibly in a pub somewhere getting pissed for some stupid reason but, really, that was also nowhere in particular.

Terry was Terry. Terry was not Ron, but this too was ambivalently placed in three-dimensional space. Ambivalent was also what Hermione was, unsure of how to proceed now that she had reached her destination. She couldn't just suddenly shift back into her human form. She wasn't a woman swept in a fur coat on her way to meet her lover, pulling the garment just a little bit tighter to avoid the chill night air; she was a wild cat in her own skin, and _her_ fur coat could not be pulled tighter without the aid of a plastic surgeon.

And even though Terry did not seem to be aware that there was a cat close by, the sudden unfolding of a female student might make him remember seeing one (cat, not female student) out of the corner of his eye. Hermione was not a registered Animagus and revealing this talent to an Auror – even a nice bloke like Terry – was, without a doubt, a Very Bad Idea.

So Hermione looked around, located a shape that looked like an ogre standing on one leg but, as there was no particular reason for an ogre to stand on one leg outside Hogwarts, was probably quite an ordinary tree. She slipped into the shadow of said tree and was just about shift into something less comfortable (under the circumstances) when a distant howl froze her almost as well as a _Stupefy_.

She shivered, heat and cold competing for control over her body, and spun around to stare in the direction of the howl. She might as well have tried to spot the bears in a picture book about _Polar Bears in a Snowstorm_.

Maybe the howl hadn't been so _distant_ after all.

The problem with sudden, unrepeated sounds was that they didn't get recorded properly in your memory, and the twisted recollection of the shock they gave you made them grow in the silence afterwards, coming closer, growing more sinister. Though the latter would be hard for the howl in question to manage. Hermione felt that if there were Hounds in Hell, that would be the sound they would aspire for; the perfect pitch for pitching damned souls off the precipitous Mountains of Madness. In short, not a noise you'd want to hear on a foggy night, or indeed any other occasion. 

Hermione glanced over at Terry. Well, he was obviously not hard of hearing. The tenseness of his posture indicated he had heard the howl just as clearly as she had. More clearly, perhaps, since he was, regrettably, closer to its ominous origin.

Then, there was another sound, much weaker but almost as terrifying. A low rasping noise – lazy footfalls on gravel. Coming closer.

Hermione was no longer actively concerned about Ron being _Someplace Else_. In fact, she was rather more worried about herself being _Right There_ and, specifically, Terry being _Over There_.

Then the mist unveiled its secret.

There was a large, four-footed shadow making its way out of the thick fog. Hermione recalled Harry's telling her of when he had glimpsed the outline of his animagus godfather, believing it to be an enormous Dog of Death, a _Grim_. 

Maybe this was the real thing.

Whatever it was, it ignored Terry's demand that it make its identity known. Either it _couldn't_ speak, or could but _wouldn't_. Either way, Hermione felt sudden dread sweep over her. The shadow moved steadily closer, responding neither to Terry's voice nor the wand he had pulled from his pocket. If it was an animal, it was an animal with a purpose.

'Halt! Stay where you are!' Terry commanded, voice faltering at the end.

While ominous as a shadow, the creature proved downright terrifying as it emerged from the fog. It bared rotting teeth and growled. Hermione felt as though she had been killed, stuffed, and put on exhibition. She wanted desperately to back away but her legs wouldn't move. The creature's eyes were locked on Terry.

Not a dog, nor a cat, the hulking creature looked made up of bits from different animals, inexpertly pieced together. The head was canine, the eyes undoubtedly feline. The creature's paws sported massive claws and large pads while the tail was hairy, scabby and worn. It looked sick but moved as if in perfect health. A brownish rib had punctured its badly lacerated chest but it seemed to take no notice. It crouched low. The rib moved out at a sickening angle.

It didn't even wince.

The beast pounced. Terry hurled a hex at it. Unaffected but annoyed, the creature turned its head and closed its jaws around the young man's arm while slamming him to the ground. With a sweeping motion of its head, the beast severed arm from body. The loud rip, squelch, and pop inspired a violent churning of Hermione's stomach and an acrid taste in her mouth.

The arm landed with a splash in a nearby puddle, wand slipping out of a limp and lifeless hand. Then the beast went for the throat.

In the abrupt silence following Terry's final, frantic scream, Hermione's soft whimpers were much too loud. The creature raised its head, blood dripping from an uneven collection of vicious-looking teeth in various states of decay. It inclined its head, staring at her.

Backing up so quickly her legs tangled, Hermione spun around, heard the beast growl behind her, and made for the main entrance as fast as her unsteady legs could carry her.

It took some seconds for the beast to react, but when it did, she could hear the heavy thumping of its paws approach with horrifying speed. The entrance was near, but for some reason, no one had ever thought to install a cat door. She would have to pull the handle. 

Using _hands_.

Hermione had never shapeshifted while in motion, and never had she been in more motion than now. Her run became wobbly and uncoordinated as muscles lengthened, bones changed form, and joints shifted and realigned.

The creature was gaining on her.

Claws were morphing into fingers as she made the first leap up the stairs. Misjudging the length of her arms, her undeveloped hands smashed into the hard stone while stubby feet scrabbled for a foothold. She fell flat against the stairs, bruising hairless knees and elbows. She felt the creature was almost upon her.

Pulling her aching leg up, she placed her fully morphed foot on the midway stair, pressed upwards as hard as she could, and launched her body upwards. Her hand closed around the handle. She pulled down, tearing the massive door open. The creature was on the stairs.

Throwing herself inside, Hermione turned and began pulling the door shut. She stared into the golden eyes of the approaching beast. _Intelligent eyes_. Intelligent enough to turn a handle.

She wouldn't have time to lock the door.

Hermione slammed the door shut only to kick it open again with all her strength. The massive structure boomed on impact with the beast, sending it flying back into the inner courtyard, momentarily dazed. It wouldn't last long. She turned and sprinted into the darkness of the main hall. 

~~~*~~~

Staggering through the poorly lit tunnel leading from the Shrieking Shack to the Hogwarts grounds, Ron had both hands clutching his head and his glowing wand stuck in his left front pocket. The placement of his hands was not merely a result of the overwhelming dizziness he felt due to his having imbibed a substantial amount of alcohol, during several hours belonging to late evening, early night, and finally past closing-time. He had also bumped into the sides of the tunnel numerous times already and had resolved to keep his hands firmly on his head as a sort of pre-emptive measure.

Now, his hands were bruised too.

Ron felt his spirits rise a bit as he approached the end of the tunnel and the opening beneath the Whomping Willow. When, upon emerging from the tunnel, he saw the corpse of an Auror looking far too much like human casserole and three massive wolf-shapes prowling just outside the reach of the Willow, he felt not only spirits but also whatever else might have been in his stomach rise rapidly through his throat.

~~~*~~~

Hermione hadn't wasted time locking the doors to the Great Hall, but had hoped the beast would simply lose track of her. Nor had she run up the main stairs, as that would have left her in plain view and within reach of but a few easy, deadly leaps. Here, at least, was a door and places to hide.

As she crouched behind the High Table, she cursed not having locked the doors after all. As she had feared, doors posed no problem for the beast. She could hear it moving up the central aisle with slow, deliberate steps. 

She crept towards the end of the table and heard the beast knock over chairs as it passed under tables to follow her. It could track her every move without any apparent effort. And there was no exit she could get to fast enough.

She was trapped.

It was no use going left, or right. The solid wall in front of her served as entrance and exit only to the resident ghosts. Up was also out, as she had neither broomstick nor any innate flying-ability. And down was as solid as forward, not a single hatch in the floor. All food was brought up from the kitchens by magic.

_By magic_.

The beast's head lifted the tablecloth behind her.

_The tables_.

She leapt onto the High Table just as the beast pounced. From there, she jumped across to the nearest of the long tables that stretched through the Hall. She spun on her heel and saw the beast already on top of the High Table, snarling at her. She pulled out her wand and aimed. Terry's failure to hex the creature suggested it was immune to magic, but she had to at least try. It could lead to her expulsion from the school but she felt no inclination to waste time trying lighter hexes but moved directly to the most powerful weapon in her arsenal – _the Killing Curse_.

'_AVADA KEDAVRA!_' The world flashed green. The beast's eyes glowed as the spell was deflected. The resulting shockwave flung Hermione down and sent her sliding backwards along the table. The beast leapt across and chased after her.

_Spells didn't work_.

Still sliding, Hermione rolled over and pushed herself up, running even before her hands were off the table.

The wards around Hogwarts made it impossible to Disapparate within the school, but there was something about the tables in the Great Hall and their exact replicas in the kitchen below that made it possible for food to be magically transported from one floor to another. At first, Hermione had discarded her impromptu escape plan, thinking that the tables probably only allowed for inanimate objects to be transported. Then, she remembered the snail Ron had found in his food the other day. It had been transported along with the food. _Quite_ alive. What remained to be seen, and tested, was whether the tables would allow the transport of something so large as a human. There was simply no other way out with the beast so close behind her.

And she didn't even know the proper spell.

Panting and almost out of breath, Hermione muttered a basic transportation spell. Nothing happened. She tried another. And another. She was running out of time and table. The beast snapped at her heels.

There was only one more spell to try. But _surely_ the Disapparation spell would be blocked even on the tables? Otherwise, it would be a _serious_ security risk, and McGonagall would simply _have_ to deal with it.

Appalled by her detached thoughts of school security, when her own level of security was near nil, Hermione concentrated and roared out the spell. The beast leapt. Claws dug into her shoulders.

She fell forward into darkness.

~~~*~~~

Ron tried to keep from falling as he half staggered, half ran back through the pitch-black tunnel. He kept his arms out to both sides to push himself away from any walls that came in his way, tearing sticky, stinging gashes in his tender palms.

He ran, and ran, and ran, scraping the rough walls, bumping into the furry ceiling. He _had_ to get back to the village and get help. And it was a long way back to the Shrieking Shack.

…

The furry ceiling.

Ron skidded to a halt and fell headlong to the ground. Ceilings weren't usually quite so _furry_.

He rose slowly, straightened his back.

And bumped into the furry ceiling. It was soft, but with hard structures beneath. Bones. There was an angry hiss from somewhere above him. The ceiling moved.

'Lumos.' It came out as a hesitant whisper but his wand responded, illuminating a few metres ahead of him. It was enough for him to wish he hadn't uttered the spell, or looked up.

Large, spiderlike creatures with grey fur were crawling upside down in a slow procession towards Hogwarts. Instead of the faceted eyes of the giant spiders that lived in the Forbidden Forest, these creatures had small black slits that seemed to suck up all light around them. Their mouths were fanged and wolflike and their ears like those of giant bats. The part of the creatures that Ron in his dazed state had taken for a furry ceiling were huge round bellies that seemed packed so full they were ready to burst. Bluish light peeked out through cracks in the skin of some of the larger specimens. They were pulsating.

And now they were all staring at him. The light, or his former belly-banging, seemed to have agitated them.

Ron spun around. Up ahead, he could just make out the front end of the procession. Turning back in the direction of the Shrieking Shack, he saw no end to the creatures.

There was a sudden change in the steady movement of the procession. Two of the creatures were moving down the sides of the tunnel.

One in front of him, one behind.

They weren't going to let him get out of there.


	4. Escalation

**4. Escalation**

Blood flowing freely from several wounds on her shoulders, Hermione crashed onto the kitchen table, crying out in pain as glasses and plates smashed into her arms and legs. The tables were set for breakfast. Chinaware and cutlery crashed to the floor as Hermione slid off the short end of the table and plunged headfirst onto the stone tiles below.

While reality suffered static disruptions, Hermione reached up to touch her aching head. Feeling something sticky - which she was pretty sure _wasn't_ shampoo leftovers - she blinked firmly, striving to stay conscious. As she opened her eyes after a final, long blink, the face of a house elf filled her vision, its huge eyes making her flinch.

'Can I get you anything?' it asked.

'Out of here.' Hermione pushed herself up on her elbows, groaning as she turned over and staggered to her feet. 'I need to get out of here. To warn the others.'

'Dangerous things out there,' said the elf. 'Mistress better stay here.'

Shaking her head, Hermione limped towards the stairway - and jerked to a halt. She didn't _have_ to limp. Healing spells were _easy_. If - she patted her pockets - one had a wand to perform them with. She hurried back, crouched down, and flung aside the broken china. Where _was_ it?

'Does the mistress desire assistance?' enquired the elf, perched on the table.

'My wand! I can't find my wand!'

'A wooden stick?'

'You know what a wand is!' snapped Hermione. The beast could have heard the noise. It could be en route to the kitchen at that very moment. She had to find her wand and heal her wounds, _quickly_.

'Like - this?' The elf held up Hermione's wand.

Relieved, Hermione rose and reached for the wand. 'Yes. Thank you. Now I--'

The elf pulled the wand out of her reach, backing away down the table. 'What do you _say_?' It grinned at her.

Perplexed, Hermione sputtered a weak 'Please?'. This was a highly _unusual_ house elf, she decided. Not even _Dobby_ behaved like that.

'No,' the elf shook its head, 'you say what it will get_ me_! One favour for another, mistress.' It kicked an obstructive bowl to the floor.

And the crash kicked Hermione's brain back into gear. The elf was using _personal pronouns_. This wasn't just a house elf behaving strangely. It wasn't a house elf at all.

And it was stalling.

And making _a lot_ of noise, kicking more and more glasses, plates, and cutlery to the floor. Hermione tried to block out the bangs and crashes, searching for subtler sounds.

And then she heard it.

Something was coming down the stairs.

She lunged for the wand, throwing herself onto the table, missing by mere inches. The elf scuttled backwards, picking up cutlery and flinging it at her.

There was a roar behind her. The table shook.

* * *

Ron stared at the abomination creeping towards him. Neither the beast in front of him nor the one behind seemed in any great hurry to attack. Rather, they appeared perfectly pleased to just have him remain where he was. Ron, on the other hand, was in a great hurry to get back to Hogwarts, both to warn the others and to be _Someplace Else_ should the monsters get hungry and re-evaluate their laid-back strategy.

Problem was, he had no clue how to do it. He had tried stunning the creatures, levitating them, and turning them into woollen socks. Which hadn't worked. So he simply stared. And then, he saw it: As the creature neared his glowing wand, its black eyes narrowed, squinting nearly shut.

On occasions when the light produced by the common _Lumos_ charm is found to be inadequate, there is a stronger alternative: the _Lumofortus_ charm, which generates light worthy of a minor lighthouse. Sunglasses are strongly recommended for the wielder who wishes to avoid spontaneous blindness.

Ron raised his wand, opened his mouth and . . . stopped.

There was a saying Ron's brothers Fred and George favoured: _Over_kill is better than _under_kill. And in matters such as this, Ron amended: _Over_kill is better than getting _yourself_ killed. This, thought Ron, is the time to bring out the big wands.

Fred and George, being a veritable fountain of knowledge and assorted items of magical mischief (all reasonably prised), had also taught Ron the fireworks spell he now hauled out of cerebral cold storage.

Even with a better wand than his, pulling off two such strong spells in rapid succession could prove difficult, even dangerous. But he had to try. If he chose only one and it proved insufficient, he would just anger the spider-creatures - and that was, for entirely selfish reasons, _not_ something Ron wished to do at that particular moment.

Ron shut his eyes, held his wand aloft, and uttered the spells. He could hear fireworks go off all around, heating up the tunnel, followed by a light so bright he could see every vein in his eyelids.

'Finite incantatem,' he muttered and opened his eyes. The creature in front of him was hissing, growling, and charging towards him. But it was also squinting, stumbling, and looking quite disoriented. The spells had worked.

Ron spun around to face the other creature. The light had affected it equally, but he could also tell it was recovering fast - too fast. One flash wouldn't work.

If only he could have remembered some way to conjure sunglasses.

'LUMOFORTUS!' Ron shouted, and as the light filled the tunnel, he rushed forward, bouncing off the belly of the nearest, blinded spider-creature, dodging the next one, then running with his back bent to avoid the rest of the creatures as he approached the end of the tunnel.

* * *

A number of drowsy house elves were nursing minor wounds and muttering about the impropriety of it all down in the kitchen, taking cover behind large pots, overturned benches, and anything else large enough to shield them from the barrage of sharp-edged cutlery heading their way. Only Dobby was foolhardy enough to risk a fork in his eye or a spoon in his oversized ear (the Evil Elf was clearly running out of sharp edges). Thus, it was only Dobby who saw the blood-streaked cat darting under the tables towards the far wall - and the indefinable monstrosity of the canine persuasion leaping from table to table in pursuit of it.

Figuring out where the cat was headed required no great feat of deduction.

* * *

During a time of failing magic (the hows and whys of which were not, Hermione distinctly recalled, specified in _Hogwarts: A History_), several Muggle-style food-lifts had been installed in the castle, leading up from the kitchens to the Great Hall and some floors diagonally above it. Fallen into disuse, most of these lifts had been sealed off and forgotten about, but a few remained, either because no one could be bothered to get rid of them or because someone had thought they might come in handy.

That one would come in handy as an escape route, no one had imagined.

The lift Hermione aimed for was, like many of its fellows in the kitchen, now used as an extra cupboard. This unfortunately meant she had to compete with a large number of jars and tins for room as she plunged headfirst into the cramped space. Pushing as many objects as possible out of her way and into the kitchen, Hermione turned around and gave the stick holding up the hatch a swift kick. It slammed down just as the creature reached the lift. Claws tore into wood.

Now for the real test of her escape plan.

She was inside a small wooden box, barely large enough to accommodate her cat form, and now she was to turn human again. With the top of the box in place she had nowhere to go, and judging by the splinters multiplying on the inside of the hatch, the paw of the beast would terminally invade her privacy in a matter of seconds. Her only hope was that changing back into her much larger human shape would force the top off, freeing her to climb up the narrow shaft.

She grew rapidly. If the top of the box was attached too well, it could turn ugly. Uglier than being ripped to pieces by the beast outside, though the difference was probably negligible.

A flying splinter hit her. The hatch was cracking.

As was the top of the box. She could hear ancient glue ripping and the wood creaking as it bent upwards. She felt the bottom of the box wobble. The kitchen was apparently not the lift's lowest point. There was empty space beneath.

Then, just as she was starting to get excruciatingly uncomfortable, the top of the box flew off. The bottom plunged into darkness. Hermione unfolded and made a desperate grab for the rope. Her hands closed around it. She looked down. The bottom of the shaft was shrouded in darkness. It could terminate as far down as the deepest dungeons. Food for erstwhile prisoners of the castle might have come this way. In any case, it was not a direction that looked in the least appealing to non-suicidal food-lift climbers.

With barely enough room to move her arms, Hermione started to climb upwards. Seconds later, the hatch shattered beneath her. The paw of the creature made a grab for her legs, missing by mere inches. She held on tight to the rope. She would _not_ let go. The beast, perhaps sensing her determination, snorted, growled and retreated through the jingling china.

Hermione climbed as fast as she possibly could.

As far as she could remember, all the old lift openings in the Great Hall were thoroughly sealed. But she also recalled seeing more improvised blocks on the floors above: a painting covering an opening, a drape pulled just that bit further. Some openings in less used corridors weren't even covered. Of course, she didn't know _which_ of the lifts she was in. This one could be blocked all the way.

_Not_ an entertaining prospect.

She passed the old Great Hall opening. As she had suspected, it was sealed off.

The shaft was cramped, musty-smelling and very, very dark. Hermione felt uncharacteristically claustrophobic. Anxious to get out, she took a steady hold of the mouldy rope and pulled with even greater force. There was a sharp, tearing noise far above her. Two seconds later, the rope grew slack and she plummeted, crying out in terror.

Feeling the ragged walls of the shaft scratch her hands and legs, Hermione braced her elbows, back, and knees against them, coming to a painful, sliding halt. The shaft was _just_ narrow enough. She would be able to climb upwards using her arms and feet to push off from opposite sides of the shaft.

But it would take time. Time she didn't have.

Still, it was either climb slowly up or travel with astounding speed down to a sudden and sloppy death. She opted for the slow path, having no choice but to stick to the straight and exceedingly narrow.

* * *

Outside, Ron Weasley made a terrible racket, every grimace in his repertoire flitting across his face in rapid succession, every foul noise he could muster pouring in a steady stream from his twisting mouth.

The wolfbeasts were edging closer. Ron gripped the tree trunk tighter and set his feet against the branches below.

Upon exiting the tunnel, Ron had placated the murderous Whomping Willow by tapping the special knot, as usual. Then, finding that the horrid creatures he'd seen prowling outside the tree's reach before were indeed still prowling, he had scrambled up the huge, gnarly willow. And that was where he still found himself.

However, recognising an urgent need to get out of said tree and into a nearby broomshed (he had tried Summoning a broom, but the spell seemed not to work), Ron didn't plan on staying long. He had a Plan. Admittedly not a very safe plan, but a plan nonetheless. The first stage involved getting the creatures closer to the Whomping Willow.

Stage One was now complete. The wolfbeasts were approaching rapidly.

Perhaps too rapidly.

Ron's plan involved hitting the Special Knot with a simple kinetic spell, then swinging quickly to the other side of the tree's massive trunk while trying to keep from getting too hurt as the Willow whomped the beasts into oblivion. What Ron's plan did not involve was the beasts' attempt to climb up the tree, while _he_ tried to keep his arm steady and hit the knot, which proved near impossible in practice.

He aimed and howled the spell. A stream of blue light shot towards the knot. And missed, again. One wolfbeast had got so far up the willow it could almost reach him with its huge, scarred paw. Ron shifted his aim and fired a repulsion spell towards the beast. Nothing happened. The beast swiped at him, tearing into the trunk just below his feet.

Ron aimed for the knot again. An inch too high.

The beast snapped its jaws shut an inch below Ron's left foot. Many inches too high.

Kicking downwards while performing the _Kinetic Repulsion Spell_ again, Ron suddenly succeeded both in thrusting the stunned beast onto its nearest companion _and_ releasing the wrath of the Whomping Willow. Ron was so stunned by this double-strike of fortune that the Willow was halfway to a major Whomp when he realised he was on the wrong side of the trunk. He swung around one of the branches, but before he could get a good grip, the willow hit the ground with a massive WHOMP. Ron's head smashed into the trunk.

This put what one may call a _new spin_ on Ron's Plan. Due to his stunned state, his grip was poor when, to the accompaniment of howling half-smashed wolfbeasts, the Willow drew back for a second Whomp. Thus it happened that, when the Willow snapped back towards the ground, Ron Weasley was hurtling backwards towards his original destination: the broomshed.

* * *

She felt really stupid hanging there, half her body outside the food-lift's opening. Stupid and exposed. There was nothing for it but to change again. Hermione heaved a sigh. As if all of her fresh wounds and bruises weren't enough, all this changing between her human and cat forms was leaving her aching and exhausted on more levels than the mere physical.

Hissing as she touched down on the floor, Hermione sped down the corridor, heading for McGonagall's quarters. The climb through the shaft had taken too long. Perhaps the creature had already begun a horrifying killing-spree, lining the castle corridors with student carcasses. Perhaps her warning would come to late.

Returning to human form as she reached McGonagall's quarters, Hermione banged on the door with all her might. When Minerva McGonagall did sleep, she did so with the same determination she did everything else in her life. Waking her up was notoriously difficult, and sometimes nasty. Professor McGonagall had never appreciated disturbances in her daily, or nightly, routines.

Hermione was therefore surprised, not to say shocked, to hear a great commotion follow her fourth bang on the door. Having a vision of poor old McGonagall falling over her slippers, sprawled on the floor, unable to get up (due to her, well, _age_), Hermione made a grab for the handle. She half expected the door to be locked. It wasn't. In fact, it wasn't just _not locked_ - it _wasn't_, period. The handle and lock _wasn't there_. Instead, she found herself staring at a scorched hole, as the door, upset by her banging, creaked slowly open.

Then she felt the smell, and heard quick footsteps inside the room.

Acting almost purely on instinct, Hermione turned her back to the door and pressed against it just as a greyish, half-rotting arm shot through the crack. The door slammed into the arm, jamming it in place. She felt something - heavy - apply its weight against the door. The arm snaked further out. Her legs skidded forward. A spidery hand with long, sharp claws tore at her robes. She heard a loud crack, followed by a metallic clanging and the sharp voice of Professor Minerva McGonagall.

'Get away from that door, Granger!'

Hermione turned, and her eyes bulged as they took in the sight before her. Professor McGonagall, barefooted and dressed in a dark blue nightgown, her greying and surprisingly long hair billowing, strode towards Hermione with a positively huge broadsword in her hands.

As Hermione's brain tried to process this image, deducing that the sword in question came from a disarrayed suit of armour some steps away, her now rather active instincts urgently suggested that moving might be a good idea when someone swings a sword your way.

Barely a second after Hermione had thrown herself out of harm's way, the sword sank into the door. Blue sparks and lightning embraced both door and sword, and then everything was quiet, except for the door's creak as it swung open to reveal a withered, troll-like creature hanging, impaled, on the sword.

'_Miss Granger!_'

Hermione stared at the dead body. It seemed to be getting deader by the minute, rotting rapidly, disintegrating while she watched. It was quite, she reflected, _yucky_.

'MISS GRANGER!'

Snapping out of the State of Shock she had been thrown into by the sight of her elderly mentor slaying a decomposition-prone creature in manner of _Xena: Warrior Princess_, Hermione turned her attention to Professor McGonagall.

'Get to the Tower and evacuate your housemates, Miss Granger. Get everyone down to the Great Hall as quickly as possible. I need to warn the other teachers.' McGonagall spoke hurriedly. 'Oh, and thanks for waking me up. It proved very good for my health.' Her mouth twitched and with a loud CRACK, she was gone.

Hermione stared for a few seconds at the spot that the professor had vacated. Then she turned towards the Gryffindor Tower.

And it hit her: McGonagall had Disapparated. Within the school.

The protective wards were down.

Suddenly, the situation seemed ten times worse. Hermione had assumed the creature that had attacked her and Terry had been some wild beast from the Forbidden Forest, and that it had simply strayed into Hogwarts through some sort of gap in the protective shielding. With the appearance of the second creature and the apparent failure of Hogwart's magical security system, it looked as though Hogwarts was under a planned attack.

Figuring out who would plan an attack on the school was, unfortunately, not hard.

Hermione shook her head to dislodge thoughts of Voldemort leaping out from behind corners and dishevelled suits of armour, like some particularly nasty Boggart. It didn't matter who was behind the attack. What mattered was following McGonagall's direct orders.

Hermione took a deep breath. Time was of the essence, but so was a clear mind.

The creatures, whatever their outward appearance, could not be hurt by magic. Professor McGonagall's use of blunt force validated that theory beyond questioning. Of course, the _blunt force_ in question looked rather sharp.

Hermione turned to the door, grabbed the hilt of the sword and yanked it forcefully out of the door. The decomposing creature on the other side fell into a pitiful and foul-smelling heap on the stone floor.

Hermione gave the sword a tentative swing. It was awfully heavy. She didn't even know if she would be able to wield it effectively. But she needed some kind of weapon and this one had just proven its worth in dealing with these mysterious creatures in a very direct, and to-the-point, manner.

But a wand was more than a weapon, and Hermione felt vulnerable without one. She hurried into McGonagall's room, past the bed and its slashed linens to the small desk by the window. She pulled out the top drawer. It was there, not in her office, that McGonagall kept confiscated wands. Hermione picked one. It could never serve her as well as her own but, nonetheless, it was a wand.

Seeing how long it had taken her to climb through the shaft, it was quite possible there were already creatures in the Gryffindor Tower. To get there quickly, she would just have to--

CRACK

--Disapparate.

* * *

Ronald Weasley was _not_ having a good night. After a number of severe and brutally sobering shocks, he was now nursing a somewhat premature hangover. And he ached, all over. Between his stumbling through the underground tunnel, his ride on the Whomping Willow, his following flight into Professor Sprout's Romping Rosebushes, his several attempts to knock down a broomshed door that for some reason could _not_ be opened by magic, and his subsequent stumbling over an errant badger whose only purpose in the plot of the night seemed to be to cause him bodily harm, Ron felt like a walking bruise.

Or rather, a hobbling bruise, soon to be a flying bruise.

Ron mounted the broom as soon as he got it out of the shed and kicked off. The broom shot into the air. In fact, it shot so violently into the air that it was soon shooting off on its own, Ron having dropped to lower altitudes, where he was getting further acquainted with the Romping Rosebushes and an increasingly distraught badger.

With rosebush-twigs romping about his robes and manic huffing and puffing behind him, Ron staggered back to the broomshed, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. He might not be as good as _Harry_ on a broom, but he certainly wasn't _that_ _bad_.

There were weird things afoot.

And it wasn't just badgers.

* * *

Seamus Finnegan screamed.

Seamus Finnegan screamed in the way of a seventeen-year-old boy who has been forcibly woken from a dream of the moister variety by a heavy weight smashing into his body in the middle of the night. He screamed in the manner of someone who, upon awakening, opens his eyes to find a wild-eyed female, much less accommodating than the one in his aborted dream, straddling his midriff and brandishing an enormous steel broadsword. He screamed like a Gryffindor under the sudden impression that his House Prefect has discovered new and painful ways of punishment for the pranks he pulled two days earlier in the Common Room. He screamed in the certain knowledge that this punishment would now befall him and forever scar his young soul of seventeen years.

In short, Seamus Finnegan produced a scream that woke the entire Gryffindor tower, and none quicker or more so than his two fellow male 7th-years, who were very surprised indeed to find Hermione Granger straddling Seamus Finnegan as they pulled aside the drapes around the latter's bed.

'What the HELL?' said Dean Thomas, who was feeling rather shocked by what he saw as much too kinky a scene to be played out in the boys' dorm. Without his knowledge.

'Wha-' said Neville Longbottom, who was feeling rather stumped for words.

'AAAAAHHH!' said Seamus Finnegan, who was feeling rather sat upon.

'It's not what you think,' said Hermione Granger, who was feeling rather embarrassed by the whole situation. 'I - I suppose I'm just not able to Apparate accurately when I'm distraught and in a hurry, okay?' she snapped and turned to exit the bed, prodding at the drapes with her sword.

'Apparate?' said Neville, who was starting to feel slightly more reassured now he had noticed that both Seamus and Hermione were still clothed, more or less. 'But you can't Apparate inside Hogwarts.'

'You can now,' said Hermione, who gave up on pushing aside the drapes and chopped the whole thing down with her sword, causing Seamus to scream even louder and grab Dean's hand for comfort. 'Something has disabled the protective wards around the school,' she jumped off the bed and rushed for the door, 'and we're under attack.' She paused at the door and turned to face the boys. 'We _must_ get to the Great Hall _immediately_, so wake up the others as fast as you can!'

Dean stared at her. 'Under attack? By who?'

Neville blanched. 'Is it V- V- Voldemort?'

'Probably,' sighed Hermione. 'Though he's using creatures I've never seen before.'

'Creatures?' said Dean. 'What sort of creatures?'

Hermione yanked the door open. 'I don't KNOW! I told you: I've never seen anything like them before! Now get out here and help me wake the--'

They all heard the scream. It had rung through the Tower once before, when Sirius Black had attacked the portrait of the Fat Lady. There was a crash.

Something had entered the Common Room.

* * *

Having first used the broom to brush a vindictive and mildly concussed badger off his foot, Ron mounted it cautiously. It was the third broom he tried. The second had thrown him off in much the same way as the first, and with much the same results, except that he had landed on something quite a bit softer, and much angrier.

He gripped the handle, tensed his thighs, and kicked off. This time, he made it to quite a respectable altitude before things went wrong.

In a hurry to get to Gryffindor Tower, Ron leaned left to turn the broom around.

The broom turned around and headed for the Tower.

So far, so good. Except for the fact that the broom had apparently taken this turning around business a bit too seriously and Ron now found himself dangling dangerously beneath it, arms aching with the effort.

Unaccustomed to steering a broom from his current position, Ron could do nothing but try to pull himself up as the broom sped past the Gryffindor Tower and on towards the Forbidden Forest. He struggled to bend his arms and swing his legs over the handle as he watched the Tower recede in the distance.

There was a distant, bloodcurdling scream.

It came from the Tower.

With the strength of utter desperation, Ron swung himself up and hooked his legs over the handle.

What if the scream had belonged to Hermione?


	5. No Shining Armour

**5. No Shining Armour**

Hermione was the first to get down to the common room, and thus also the first to see three intruders moving deliberately towards the dorm stairs. One looked like a medieval knight in full armour, and thus decidedly more stylish than his two comrades who merely looked like lumbering illustrations of the term 'dead man walking'. Though she thought it a silly term, Hermione could find no better word for them than _zombies_. She shuddered, and not just because of questionable vocabulary. It only took a quick glance at the zombies to see that your defeat and, quite possibly, death was right there at the top of their to-do list.

There was an outbreak of terrified screams behind her. The others had arrived, apparently drawing much the same conclusions about the intruders' evil intent as Hermione had. And it didn't take her long to figure out what happens when a congregation of junior wizards and witches are presented with a rapidly advancing foe.

She threw herself onto the floor as a great number of aggressive spells streaked over her and slammed into the three visitors, the surrounding furniture, and some very puzzled potted plants. As expected by exactly one dust-sniffing person in the room, these spells had no effect whatsoever. The zombies sped up.

'GET BACK,' Hermione moved into a crouch and turned a glare towards the others, 'TO THE DORMS! _NOW_!'

A grey hand clasped her shoulder. Gripping her sword with both hands, Hermione heaved the blade back over her shoulder, and felt it come to a slow stop in what was presumably her attacker's shoulder. She felt sickened; but better his shoulder than hers.

The grip slackened. Hermione tore herself free and rose to face her foe.

The zombie's other hand crashed into the side of her skull, sending her flying into an armchair that promptly tipped over backwards. The sword flew out of her hands, clanging onto the floor behind her. Her vision blurred. Upside-down students hurried towards her, anxious to help. They had no weapons. She had to keep them safe. Somehow.

She opened her mouth to order them back, but as a hand grabbed her left ankle and hauled her back over the armchair, all that came out was an incoherent scream. A scream begun in fear but quickly transformed into one of rage.

Bending her left leg while straightening her right, Hermione kicked the zombie's head hard. It cracked backwards, and Hermione was promptly dropped to the floor where she rolled over and scuttled to where the sword lay waiting. The zombie's presence, just behind her, was so tangible she was sure she wouldn't reach the sword in time.

Books suddenly flew overhead, thudding loudly against her pursuer. She reached for the sword, grabbed the hilt, swung around, and was hit by a book in the back of her head.

'Don't hit HER!' Dean exclaimed behind her.

'Sorry,' came the muttered reply from what Hermione guessed was Lavender Brown.

The zombie lunged at her, about to completely disregard Dean's order to Not Hit Hermione. And it sure didn't intend to say 'sorry'.

Hermione, for her part, wasn't about to apologise for slicing off one piece of zombie head with her newly adopted steel broadsword.

Well, not _completely_ off. And 'slice' suggests a type of stylish sword-fighting not mastered by Hermione Granger, resident Hogwarts bookworm. She was glad Nearly Headless Nick wasn't around. Had he seen her botched attempt at decapitation, he would probably never have spoken to her again.

There was a shriek and a thud behind her.

_Yes, definitely Lavender_.

Hermione turned to the second zombie and was raising her sword again as she felt another book swish past behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something she had previously failed to notice, on account of its being perfectly implausible:

The first zombie was still standing, its head dangling from the remnants of its neck. It battled against a flying current of books, chess pieces, flowerpots, and miscellaneous Gryffindor memorabilia. It was heading for the others, who didn't have a sword between them.

Distracted, Hermione turned back, leaving herself wide open for the blow the second zombie immediately dealt her. She staggered backwards and toppled over a footstool. The zombie loomed over her.

Turning her head, she saw Dean Thomas and Parvati Patil swing brass pokers at the other zombie. It didn't seem particularly effective. She needed to finish this one off. Shocked by her determination to 'finish someone off', Hermione's brain once again snapped into strategic overdrive, fuelled by pure fear.

She kicked the footstool harshly into the zombie's shins. She raised her sword. The zombie fell. Empty black eyes stared into hers. The hilt of her sword pressed sharply against her ribcage. One rib felt broken. The blue-coloured energy surged around them – prey and hunter, victor and victim, alive and dead.

Hermione turned away from the dead creature on top of her just in time to see Parvati pierce the second zombie with her poker. That should take care of that one.

Or not.

The zombie seized Parvati by the throat and hoisted her up into the air. Dean's poker joined its twin straight through what ought to have been the zombie's stomach.

Dean's feet dangled in the air. Neville's feet made contact with zombie legs, over and over and over again, to no avail.

Hermione realised that she was just staring detachedly at the events in front of her, trying to figure out what on Earth was going on. Springing, with some difficulty, into action, she pushed away the dead zombie. She pulled her sword from the fallen body and extended the motion until she had it aimed at the second zombie's back.

She struck.

The blue lightning made its third appearance for the night.

Parvati and Dean fell gasping to the floor.

Hermione let out a shaky breath, leaning on her sword. There were whimpers, frightened gasps, and crying all around her, but none of it really seemed to register. There was something her mind was insisting she had—

'Utterly pathetic,' said a muffled male voice behind her.

—forgotten.

The knight.

And it was no shining armour.

* * *

Feeling more on top of things – not least his broom – Ron zoomed back towards the Tower. He had no plan more complex than that of getting there as quickly as possible and rescue Hermione. Because he was quite sure she needed rescuing, what with the loud screaming and all.

The closer he got to the Tower, the more worried he got, and the more confused his thoughts became, trains of them derailing all over the place. Worrying about Hermione was nothing new, but these worries mainly concerned their relationship, as it were, and his inability to take it to the next level. He rarely had to worry about her getting killed. Sure, it had happened before – they were friends with The Boy Who Attracts Trouble after all – but he was usually there _with_ her – able to _do_ something.

The only thing he could _do_ now, was make sure he was there _with_ her as soon as—

—as soon as he'd dodged that bloody great beam of blue light blasting through one of the common room windows.

* * *

Well, that was new.

At least the zombies had only lumbered, leapt, and loomed.

Hermione was personally partial to two other L's: Lying Low, which was what she now did behind the overturned armchair, and had been doing behind a table before it turned into so much non-protective ash.

Her back pressed against the armchair's underside, Hermione repeated the order the others just would not heed: 'GET _UPSTAIRS_!'

Though terrified, the other Gryffindors – all crouching behind various pieces of furniture – kept looking around in desperate search for some solution, some weapon. At least they had all been sorted into the right House – foolishly brave and noble . . . to the end?

Neville, nearest to Hermione, shook his head at her. 'We're not leaving you down here with that—that _thing_!'

'You have to, Neville! There's only one sword and—and I'm using it.' It was a lame reason, she knew that. But she felt that, as a prefect, it was her duty to protect all Gryffindors. Especially the young ones. Thankfully most of the youngsters had heeded her, retreating to their dorms. Not that they would be safer there, should she fail to stop the knight.

Another blast hit the far wall, grazing a number of other items, including Dean's robes, on its way.

That was ENOUGH.

Slamming her sword down on the floor, Hermione pulled out the wand previously pilfered from McGonagall's desk. She raised the wand and looked around. All the others had stayed close to the dorm stairs, or had retreated rapidly once blue lightning started streaking about the place.

Wishing she had had a copy of Herbet Skydd's _Charming Defence_ with her to check that she got the wording right, Hermione leapt to her feet and performed the spell while running across the room, sweeping her wand from side to side.

In sparkling bursts of magic, a semi-transparent shield sprouted along the path Hermione had sketched with her wand. Once she was satisfied the others were safely on the other side, Hermione summoned the broadsword, letting her wand clatter to the floor, knowing full well she would have to wield steel, not wood, to vanquish the knight.

The hilt of the sword found her hands.

'Hermione, no!' shouted Dean. Hermione barely registered the muffled sound as carrying meaning. The knight stood silent in the centre of the room, observing the magical shield.

'Impressive, milady,' he said, 'But thou hast taken from me all my little playthings, hast thou not?' He turned his faceless visor towards Hermione. 'It mightily vexes me to have but thee alone left to entertain me, as entertaining as indeed thou art.' He chuckled.

At that moment, Hermione realised that this was the most frightening monster of all. Not a bloodthirsty animal, nor a lumbering mindless zombie, but a cold, calculating, heartless man of steel. A hunter not going for the quick kill but the prolonged sadistic pleasure of witnessing his prey's suffering and pain.

Hermione suddenly felt a terrifying urge to _kill_. The ruthlessness of her foe forced an equal response in her. Morals and civilised behaviour trickled away through the floorboards beneath her feet whilst bile and loathing rose in their place. Her high and lofty ideals were dragged down until they rolled around in the filth spewing from the abominable steel-clad vision in front of her. A concession to the lowest common denominator of some twisted equation of hate.

Clang, cling, clang, cling, clang—

The knight sauntered towards her – certain of his advantage, his steel-coated upper hand. Infuriatingly calm.

'Quelle jolie jeune fille, hm?' the knight purred.

Hermione felt an urge to hiss and arch her back in defiance. 'Save your poor French for someone who fancies a night with a creep in a can.' Her voice trembled far more than she had intended. What on Earth was she on about? She felt as though there was someone reciting a poorly scripted action movie through her empty, shell-shocked skull.

The chuckle sounded more lecherous the second time. And thrice as terrifying.

The knight reached up to touch her face. Cold metal stung her cheek.

'Such a sweet, pretty little lass.'

'I AM—' Her sword gonged into the knight's helmet. He staggered. '—NOT—' The sword made a return swing and smashed into the helmet's other side. '—SWEET—' Clang. The hand dropped from her cheek. '—OR—' _CLONG_. '—LITTLE—' _CLANG_. '—AND I'M _COVERED IN BLOOD!_'

She lowered her sword, panting. At a loss for what to do next, she simply watched as the knight swayed from side to side with both hands on his helmet.

He had on full body-armour. How could she kill him when she couldn't even get to him?

The knight steadied. She could see narrowed eyes staring at her through the thin slit in his visor.

'I might have spared thee.' _He wouldn't have_. 'But now… Parcere subjectis, et _debellare_ superbos.' He glanced at her frightened friends beyond the shield. 'But of course, you are all _Gryffindors_ – I should have known.' He turned back to her, his voice low and hissing. '"Death, as the psalmist saith, is certain to all: all shall die", and thou, wench, shalt do so now!'

With the strength and speed of joint human and cat survival instincts, Hermione threw herself out of harm's way milliseconds before another blue blast widened the fireplace behind her. A wide range of knick-knacks and older, more stylish ornaments clattered, thunked, smashed, and clanged onto the floor. One miniature flagpole toppled over and plunged, Chuddle Cannons banner first, into the hardwood floor. Hermione stared at the softly reverberating little metal pole, mesmerized. It was as though the sound spoke directly to the strategizing part of her brain. She only had to figure out what it was it was trying to tell her. Which was easier thought than done, what with an ignoble knight aiming to blast her into oblivion, and her schoolmates screaming in terror nearby. Nearby, yet far away – for both her and the mad knight.

It hit her like a bolt of lightning, just in time for her to catch up with current events and avoid a non-proverbial one heading her way. The blasts were coming at shorter intervals. The knight was furious. Just the way she wanted him.

Scuttling across the floor, keeping behind pieces of furniture that were rapidly ascending to furniture heaven, Hermione searched for the wand she had dropped before. She found it lying just inside the shield, and as she crouched down to take it, Dean Thomas mirrored her position on the other side. 'Let us _help_.'

'Try to think of a way to get to the Hall,' she said, disregarding his plea, '_other_ than disapparating – there are too many who can't.' The knight was clanging towards her. She gazed into Dean's eyes, trying to convey a strength she feared might merely be a figment of her imagination. 'I'll manage.'

Then a quotation emerged from the dark, expansive library of her mind, and suddenly she realised, with something approaching childish glee, that her bookishness could benefit her even now. If only for the gratification of vexing that damned knight even further. She grinned at Dean. 'If he fancies Virgil, I'll _give_ him Virgil!' She turned, standing tall to once again face the dreaded knight from behind the overturned old armchair.

The knight raised his arms. Everyone was silent. Many held their breaths. They waited for the knight to say something, along the lines of 'Now you die' or 'Farewell, milady'. At the very least he ought to have cackled viciously. He ought to show some signs of madness. Ought to behave like the insane Dark Lord few of them had seen but all had heard stories about. He ought not be allowed to perform a silent execution, a perfunctory murder without a final display of mordant wit, as madmen were wont to do in stories such as this.

That was how it felt, that night, to those allegedly fearless Gryffindors – as if they had all been dragged into some strange story, the happy ending of which they now awaited with bated breath. But the knight wasn't following the script. Without some final words of intended farewell or a prolonged cackle, no Rescue Plan could be concocted, no solution found.

Only one person knew that a Plan was already at hand. And, luckily, that one person was Hermione Granger. She smiled abruptly at the knight. An angry, challenging smile.

'Audentes fortuna juvat!' she hissed. Then she leapt onto the armchair, pointed her wand at herself and said 'Wingardium leviosa!' She pushed off and soared into the air. The knight raised his arms, finding his aim just as Hermione passed directly over him. Doing half a wobbling somersault in midair, she saw the blast of energy pass mere inches from her face, singeing the robes blossoming out in a topsy-turvy, and highly inappropriate, imitation of Marilyn Monroe.

The blast was immense, punching a hole straight through the ceiling and up through the tower. Hermione fervently hoped it hadn't struck any unsuspecting students in the dorms above.

Debris poured into the room. A wooden block knocked Hermione to the floor, leaving her lying sprawled at the feet of the knight with no weapon save an ineffectual wand. Exposed and defenceless.

Maybe her plan wasn't so great after all.

Trembling with rage, the knight brought his arms about to aim at the insolent girl before him. But before he could unleash his wrath in a shower of blue, a chair shattered against his back. He turned around, and saw red. A broomstick slammed into the back of his helmet. He spun around again—

—and saw red there too.

Though he did not know their names, the knight was being attacked by irate Weasleys on two fronts.

And he was quite upset about it.

Using the last leg of the chair she had picked up on her way from her hiding-place behind the red sofa, Ginny Weasley used the knight's helmet as a poorly tuned gong. 'STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!' She punctuated the shout by a swift kick at the knight's steel-encased leg, finishing off the physical expression of her anger with a rather more timid whimpering noise.

The knight turned again to find a redheaded girl hopping about on one leg, and a broom once more sweeping painfully across his back.

'DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!' roared protective older brother Ron, who had zoomed in through the window a few seconds earlier after finally managing to not hit the wall surrounding it.

'ENOUGH!' screamed the fuming knight.

And in all the commotion, none of the combatants heard the muttered 'Wingardium Leviosa' rising from the floor. Nor did they notice the other thing rising into the air, and up through the hole in the roof.

Those on the other side of the shield noticed. They watched Hermione get to her feet as both Weasleys ducked blue lightning. They saw her advance on the knight. And they knew.

Knew what her plan was.

Knew that it might work.

And that it very well might not.

The knight had moved too far from bull's-eye.

And now, they had no weapons. The knight had an unstoppable weapon, and thrice the chance of hitting something living. And turn it to dead ashes. Ashes and dirt.

Someone would get irrevocably hurt.

It might be the knight.

It very well might not.

It might well be that what Hermione told the knight (and which had some of the older girls searching for younger ears to cover) to make him turn around was just a bit _too_ vile. Instead of charging towards her, he simply sent a miniature supernova expanding in her general direction.

If possible, the New Hermione Granger (which had already succeeded in thoroughly freaking out all the first-, second-, and third-year Gryffindors) looked even more devilishly dangerous having had the outer fringes of her expansive hair set aglow, rolling through dust and rubble to rise like some fuming feminist phoenix on the other side of a knight she looked about ready to unseam like the unseemly canned male pig he was.

Lavender Brown shook herself out of her reveries, very much regretting that extra feminist course.

Hermione Granger, for her part, had already shaken off extraneous thought, so much so that she hardly felt like herself anymore. All that was left was a shining core of preservation instinct – and the Plan. On the whole, she felt, the fact that she _didn't_ feel like herself was a _Good Thing_, seeing as she would personally have objected strongly to herself doing what that shining core of wossname was now about to do.

Vocabulary was something else she had shrugged off, making room for the emotionally eloquent war cry she now hurled at the knight alongside her much more physical self, knocking him several feet backwards, and almost knocking herself unconscious against his steel plating in the process.

Hermione bent backwards and tried to focus on the ceiling. The reason for its being out of focus was that the ceiling in question was several floors up.

Bull's-eye.

She had to act quickly. Turning around, she hooked one leg around the knight's. The steel man fell – pulling Hermione with him.

Lying with her back to the swearing knight, Hermione looked up again, at the shining weapon poised in flight high, high above them. 'Finite. Incantatem.' The spell-terminator had never sounded more grimly fatalistic, its final syllables punctuated by the knight's hands locking Hermione's arms down in a vice-like grip.

The sword plummeted.

The screams of those beyond the shield merged into one mighty chorus of shock, fear, and despair. The knight's hands dug deep as Hermione struggled to free herself from the vicious weight beneath her. To Ron Weasley, paralysed with shock and incomprehension, the two combatants looked like a huge steel-and-flesh beetle, flailing its limbs in the air in an attempt to turn over.

And over, the beetle turned, with a cry of exertion from its flesh and one of anger from its steel shell. The sight of a broadsword accelerating towards her seemed to have given Hermione strength beyond all she had wasted earlier that night. Pinned beneath the heavy weight of the knight, she concluded that she had now used up so much strength she didn't have in the first place that, after this night, she would be surprised if she could even get out of bed, or eat, or breathe.

Then the sword hit and all her breath fled her lungs. Her ribs squeezed together. Her breasts felt ready to burst like overripe tomatoes, and the tip of the sword penetrated her robes and breached her skin. She could feel it between her shoulder blades; sinking, expanding—

—stopping.

'_HERMIONE_!'

There was a flash of darkness. A moment of silence.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt the dead weight of the knight being lifted from her back, a light pressure against her wrist, and saw Ginny's wide eyes staring at her, questioning.

'She's alive!'

The only response was a collective sigh from beyond the shield and Ron's hand resting on her back, trembling but not shaking. Shaken but reassured.

Ginny forced a smile. 'Don't you ever complain about me being wild and reckless again, okay?' The answering wry smile from Hermione brought an unforced but slightly guilty grin to the face of the youngest Weasley. Hermione would still be around to chastise her about going to wild parties and indulging in dangerous pastimes. And that was all that mattered.

Ron had his wand out, trying to heal the wounds on Hermione's back.

'They're not healing right!' He shook his wand, as if that would make it work better.

'They're healing,' said Hermione wearily. 'I can feel it. It's just a bit slow.'

Ginny leaned forward, watching Ron work on the wounds.

'Why?' she said.

Hermione tried to push herself up, and failed miserably. 'I don't know.' She sighed. 'Help me?'

Ginny took hold of Hermione's arm and pulled her up, ignoring Ron's insisting that Hermione wasn't in a fit state to be anything but horizontal.

'We need to contact the teachers, or an Auror. Get help,' Hermione muttered, sorting through the torrent of thought returning to her in her post-shock, post-amazon, post-wossname state. She needed to _focus_.

'Ehm,' Ginny began, 'Actually, there's one here already. An Auror.'

Hermione stared at her. 'What? _Here_? But why—'

Ginny shut her eyes. 'Behind the sofa.'

Hermione hobbled over to the sofa, looked behind it, and saw the Auror.

Or rather, part of the Auror. About half, though she didn't care to take measurements.

She turned away from the ghastliness, slumping into the sofa. Ron moved to take a look behind her but she held up a shaking hand. 'He—got splinched,' she said. Short and succinct. And all she could manage. Further words would clear a path for vomit, and she could do without that taste sensation, all things considered.

Ron's face was alight with incomprehension. 'He—he got—,' he willed the word out of his mouth, '_split_?' There were gasps of horror from those who heard him. 'But Aurors Apparate all the time!'

'I don't think,' said Hermione, 'it would be wise to Disapparate at the moment.' It was a simple statement but the implications, the intimations, were terrifying. Anyone of them could have become the victim of a botched Apparation – half of them here, half of them there, the whole of them nowhere and never again.

'Um. Could someone… ehm…?' The voice was low and timid, almost afraid to be heard. Afraid to bring more trouble to those with piles of it bending their backs.

Ron heard, and brought up his wand. 'Finite incantatem!'

The shield remained intact.

Hermione turned her head slowly, as if watching from inside, or outside, a dream. A nightmare. 'It's a defensive spell, Ron. Only the caster can end it.' She got up and limped towards him. 'Give me the—' With a POP, the shield vanished. '—wand?'

No spell had been spoken. But the shield was gone.

Ron's jaw dropped, making way for his famous goldfish impression, mirrored by those beyond the shield. Hermione took the wand from his limp hand.

'Wingardium leviosa.' That very first spell of her Hogwarts career had served her well that night. It brought her a soothing sense of coming full circle. What better spell to test if her fears were justified?

The vase, miraculously unscathed by the turmoil around it, floated through the air like a tiny ship of glass.

It wobbled.

It spread out over the floor, its glittering shards illustrating a reality of broken magic.

'It doesn't work,' said Hermione, eyes locked on the wreckage. 'Magic. Doesn't. Work.'

* * *

The Bowtruckle knew little of water and nothing of whirlpools. If it had, it would no doubt have felt caught up in one. As it were, it merely experienced a pulling, dizzying sensation as the darkness approached. On the whole, Bowtruckles were not known for their rich metaphorical reasoning. If asked, it would probably have described the weakening of its magical aura as sappin' wossname pulling wossname in wossname circles out of its blooming wossname.

However one were to describe it, the draining feeling peaked as black scaly skin grated the side of the Bowtruckle's precious tree. The tiny tree-guardian couldn't even muster the energy for a foolhardy attack against the massive tree-wrecker. It simply clung to the stem it called home as the old tree snapped and crashed towards the ground. The little creature had no tears to shed but the wailing lament that rose from its miniscule mouth could have made a heart of steel weep liquid ore.

The tree that had grown and been groomed by the Bowtruckle for over two centuries lay broken on the forest floor, cut off from nourishment. Beyond repair. Dying.

The Bowtruckle dug its sharp fingers into the thick bark and laid its head down to rest. It would not leave. They would both return to the earth.

In time.

The darkness continued towards Hogwarts, utterly unconcerned with the destruction it left in its wake.


	6. Descent

**6. Descent**

The children of trees rose in defiance of the darkness. Clustered together in the image of their forbears' mighty forests, they sought the power of many. Damming and channelling the lingering traces of magic, the wands focused on one sole goal in perfect symbiosis with their witch and wizard wielders. 'ACCIO BROOMSTICKS!' boomed through the Tower and rung across the grounds like a vocal bell tolling the might of unsubjugated magic.

Hermione gazed out into the empty night sky and hoped that Lady Luck would smile on her once more, that she had recalled the wand-linking charm correctly, that the broomsticks would heed their call, and that—

—and that hope wasn't a mere figment of her imagination.

* * *

During the design of the Hogwarts broom-shed, it had been taken as a given that those in want of a broom would enter, pick out a suitable broom, exit, and then take off. Consequently, the shed had not been constructed to support a mass exodus of brooms brought about by one particularly powerful summoning spell.

The result of the majority of the resident brooms' (though not all – for some, the failing spells were too many, and they could manage no more than an uninspired hop) attempting to exit all at once through one door was thus the complete and chaotic destruction of the shed in question. And as it was reduced to so much rubble, the already frayed nerves of one very unfortunate badger were reduced to nothing very much at all.

* * *

In the Great Hall, a plodding line of newly arrived Hufflepuffs performed a spirited mass imitation of their troubled totem animal as Potions Master Severus Snape cursed like a man possessed by some particularly vile poltergeist. His broomstick had just taken upon itself to zoom out a broken window, and for this, it was duly damned.

Had he known it was heeding the call of Gryffindor House, he would likely have sent some poor Hufflepuff into a dead faint.

* * *

Having convinced the final batch of first-years that malfunctioning broomsticks were, in fact, preferable to trekking through a dark and monster-packed Hogwarts, Ron turned from the scorched opening in the Tower's outer wall to peer back at Hermione. She kneeled, perfectly still, by the corpse of the knight. He called her name. She remained immobile.

What had surprised her most about the corpse was the blood. Not the actual presence of an expanding pool of murky red – a perfectly reasonable side-effect of having a sword driven straight through one's body – but, rather, the _absence_ of the fluid in the death scenes of the two zombies. An absence she had overlooked until blood, other than her own, had made its final, late appearance.

Before the sudden outpouring of blood, Hermione had fumbled her slashing way through a silver-age swashbuckler, where blood happened _off-screen_. Now, she had been flung headlong into the unreal reality of contemporary lowbrow action and horror.

That this morbidly mental metaphor effectively cast _her_ as the monster-slaying bloody bimbo of her B-movie life didn't exactly help matters. Though, _really_, she was probably a bit too bright, a bit too brown, a bit too bushy, and a bit too – _small_ – to be cast as the Blonde Bimbo with the Big Boobies.

Hermione was content to let her mind make these little excursions into a realm of metaphorical mirrors. They reflected a reality distorted enough to make it tolerable and, ultimately, manageable. Brutal, unfiltered reality would demand her undivided attention soon enough. For now, she would simply process.

She pondered the blood, its presence and absence.

She considered the connection between knight and zombies, and the bloody difference.

She tried to ignore the conclusion that while the zombies were beings fuelled by some strange form of magic – undead creatures bereaved of their negating prefix – the knight was a man of flesh and leaking blood. A man _she_ had killed.

Murdered?

She traced the dull dents in the helmet clutched in her hands. She had vaguely hoped to find some inhuman monster underneath it. What she found instead looked rather like an adult Harry. Too much like Harry – even the eyes, staring, possibly at Death. A man killed by an ancient Muggle weapon, with eyes the colour of magical murder.

Ron's hand on her shoulder jerked her back into what she reluctantly recognised as reality. The helmet clattered to the floor. Ron spoke, too quickly for her poorly synched thoughts. She got the gist of his message without registering a word: _They should leave. Quickly._

She lingered by the Tower's outer wall, sloppily seated on a hiccupping broom. The sword stood lodged in armour that, from a distance, looked infested with premature red rust. Unmoving and unmoved, it grew out of the knight's body like a potted wildflower – its murdering nature finally tamed, its thirst for blood satisfied, for another hundred years or so.

Eyes drifting across the rubble, Hermione experienced a curious sense of loss, finding herself half expecting, half wishing, her favourite puppy would burst forth, yapping reassuringly and wagging its stubby tail. Which, on the whole, would have been rather unsettling, as she didn't have a puppy, much less a favourite one. She was, after all, _quite_ the cat person.

No, what she did wait around for, she realised, was herself. She hoped against hope that the person she had been – before the blood, before that night – would return to take possession of her body, giving the New Hermione a chance to rest in peaceful oblivion. Before the blood.

She also realised, for she was indeed a bright girl, that what she really wanted was to return – return to her idealistic former self, so sure of her ability to resolve any situation without resorting to excessive violence—

'Hermione! Come on!'

—to _murder_.

She followed Ron down towards the Hall, but she wanted to go back.

Back, before the blood.

* * *

Arthur Weasley was, like his youngest male offspring, having a long night. What he didn't know was that it would get longer, downwards, upwards, and round, round, round, in a not-very-merry-go-round. Of this, Arthur Weasley was blissfully unaware.

Not that Mr. Weasley's state of mind could be said to be in any manner blissful as he sat slumped over his desk at the Ministry's miniscule Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, contemplating both the case at hand and the syrupy movement of silent night. Now, this night, devoid of any sound but the vague noises trickling up and down from more nocturnal branches of the Ministry, was not, strictly speaking, longer than any other night. Time, after all, remains a constant throughout the universe. Or so it is assumed by most, except by those perplexing perpetrators of so-called Relativity Theory.

The Wizarding World has its very own version of relativity, made popular by the late master mage Rufus de Quloque, who was wont to argue his theory at great length, and with many curious and convenient new additions, whenever he _was_ late. Which was always, even to his own funeral, which was considered very tacky by those who had to listen to him boisterously reminisce the whole after-funeral party away. (This last incident was, coincidentally, the most popular example of a Long Night known to wizarding kind.)

de Quloque's theory went, roughly, as follows: Time is a matter of perception. Through observing the changing state of the world around us, we perceive the forward motion of Time. Since we all stand at the centre of our very own perceived universe, and other people very rarely stand at that same centre (since body possession and mind invasion are pastimes commonly frowned upon by the general public), we all experience a very personal passing of Time. No man's Time is the same as his neighbour's, and certainly not the same as his wife's.

But since we are such very communal creatures, we have constructed _time_, a universal constant in the same league as metres and intercultural misunderstandings. To make sure we can all keep track of this constructed constant, we have created clocks, small devices that _happen_ in a very predictable and _constant_ sort of way, except for when one forgets to wind them up, or accidentally drop them from one's bedroom window onto the surprisingly thick head of the local worm-chasing rooster.

Problems, other than the purely accidental destruction of mechanical devices, occur when a person's private Time is too far out of synch with _time_. Say you're a relaxed, leisurely, laid-back sort of individual, to use de Quloque's favourite example. Say you spend your days pondering the infinite problems of our Times. Say you do this particular pondering suitably reclined in some hammock or other, meditating on the big blue above. Say your thoughts speed about most vigorously while the sky _happens_ very slowly, as it is wont to do on those bright blue days so very conducive to productive pondering of portentous problems. On such occasions, the ponderer's own Time may move very ponderously indeed while, elsewhere and just about everywhere, clocks keep _happening_ in a most regular and unponderous manner. On such _unfortunate_ occasions, the ponderer may arrive at places according to a personal Time most _woefully_ out of synch with _time_, as related by those most _regular_ little devices that so greatly disturb the concentration of the serious ponderer. But, it should most certainly be noted that the ponderer whose Time is always on _time_ ponders at a most _ponderous_ and _ineffective_ pace, and is thus not much of a ponderer at all, and perfectly unlikely to solve the serious _Problems of Our Times_ as the _professional_ ponderer must eventually do, if left to ponder in peace.

Say, on the other hand (the short one lazing forth the hours), that your ponderings ponder themselves into what is generously described as a coma, and uncompanionably called a dead stop with scant hope of resurrection. At such regrettable times, with no distractions to pull you from your passed-away ponderings' frozen clutches, even the flickering of a candle (for these times tend to favour the darker hours) _happens_ so vigorously in comparison to your own very much _not_ happening thoughts that eons seem to pass for every unmissable tick of the, at such times ever-present, clock. It is at these times, when Time comes to a halt and _time_ keeps on ticking, that nights, and the occasional day, feel longer than ever before.

Arthur Weasley's troublesome case at hand (the one saying 'Arthur', pointing at 'Work') also concerned the inconstancy of time. Or, to be more precise, the inconstancy of timetables. Not the accepted and assumed inconstancies always found in railway companies' optimistic time planning but anomalies that defied even what little reason the timetables did display.

Laid out before him on his desk were timetables for the London Underground. And he had to find a pattern to the anomalies.

The anomalies Mr Weasley was investigating were not actually listed in the timetables themselves. In fact, they had been most expertly covered up by both the London Underground and the Muggle officials in charge. Not even the notorious Muggle media had covered the case, nor had its only slightly less notorious Wizarding counterpart. They had, surprisingly enough, not considered the grumbling of disgruntled ex-employees sufficient proof to publish such unbelievable theories.

It was sheer luck that the Quibbler had had its pages full with stranger fictions at the time.

A little over a two months previously, drivers for the London Underground began reporting weird incidents, calling in sick due to unstable work conditions, or simply quitting altogether. The tunnels were misbehaving, they said. Hallucinations were an everyday occurrence. Those who didn't suddenly find themselves driving through fields of barley or other sorts of scenery not usually found beneath central London started getting to their stations ahead of schedule. It was hard to say which phenomena was considered the more unsettling and, frankly, unreal of the two.

At first, the Muggles had investigated possible gas leaks, bad food (not, it should be noted, whether the food was bad in the first place), possible terrorists at play with a surprisingly subtle form of chemical warfare, and had at one point theorised that perhaps it was all merely an elaborate practical joke, soon to be broadcast on some perky cable network. They had even entertained wild ideas of evil Tube driver union conspiracies, but, when all else failed, they had, as reluctantly as ever, turned to the Ministry for help. The whole thing smelled strongly, it was agreed, of magical mischief.

So, the Ministry investigated, with scarcely more impressive results than the Muggles. While the first investigators had trekked through the tunnels in search of gas leaks and biological weapons, the wizards scanned for lingering traces of magic. Like their forerunners, they found nothing unusual or unexpected. At least, they found no expected unexpected unusualness. Many were the tunnels they traversed with nothing more exciting happening than their hearing ghost trains approaching in the distance. Only twice did a train come round the bend, causing the wizards to test their Disapparation skills, and the Muggles before them to test their immediate knowledge of maintenance tunnels.

Those trains never arrived at the other end of the tunnel. Rather, they arrived at other ends altogether, as could be vouched for by a Tube driver who felt very strongly that folk should _not_ be strolling through the Underground unannounced.

It was the Muggles speedily cramped into a maintenance tunnel who finally insisted that the Ministry be brought in, seeing as they were _quite_ convinced the train that had nearly run them over was _not_ merely some rampant mirage that had migrated from the African desert to settle underneath central London.

So, the Ministry investigated, and then, suddenly, the problems seemed to cease. No reports came in. No drivers quit or called in sick for anything but the usual unusual reasons. All was calm. The case became a low priority. Until Arthur Weasley, wrapping up loose ends, thought to ask one driver if, indeed, he had not experienced any anomalies whatsoever.

It turned out the driver in question quite _enjoyed_ taking detours through the English countryside, with occasional glimpses of Italy and Morocco, and in no way felt this was something to _complain_ about.

Resources were once more re-allocated to the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts and Misuse of Magic offices. Additional interviews were conducted. The hippie had stayed on because of the wild trips, man. (Though, the warthog he lamented having run over in a secluded Serengeti grove had probably not found it _quite_ so groovy.) The former flight attendant had quit his previous employment when he'd seen a bear with a pink umbrella flying past the plane on a motorbike. (The English countryside was restful by comparison.) And no one had told young master Twist what the tunnels were _supposed_ to look like. After all, expansive and curiously placed gardens were all the rage, werhn'ey, eh?

Sceptics reasonably questioned whether, perhaps, it had merely been a matter of the Underground hiring nutcases all along. So, communication with commuters was suggested. Five interviews were conducted before the investigators realised that making people question the unusual blackness of the tube trains' windows on some stretches was, in fact, rather counterproductive. Mass media attention and a mass exodus from the Tube were not on anyone's wish list.

The investigation yielded little new headway. Still, through the perceptiveness of the excursion-fond drivers, the essential nature of the problem was revealed to be far more physical than food-induced hallucinations or feisty mirages.

Unlike their Muggle colleagues, the Ministry wizards thought it perfectly plausible that underground trains could, for whatever reason, pop out in all sorts of unusual places. So they looked for landmarks described by the drivers, and found some most curiously placed Tube tracks; hidden in secluded valleys, shrouded by dense groves, laying half submerged in the moving Moroccan sand, all of them beginning and ending with – nothing. All of them falling into utter disuse as soon as they were discovered, providing no further clues.

So, clues had to be searched for elsewhere. And Arthur searched in timetables, seeking some pattern to the strangeness. It was fiddly work well suited to him, whose Muggle mania was, in many ways, no more than an extravagant form of the common Crossword Compulsion.

But he could make neither heads nor tails of it, and patterns emerged only when he was nodding half to sleep, on account of his going mildly cross-eyed. It seemed hopeless, and had it been the only reason for his working overtime, he would have already gone home to hear Molly chide him once more for his going along – like a mindless _lump_ – with Albus Dumbledore's plans for Harry Potter.

But Dumbledore had asked him to keep an eye on things inside the Ministry that night, on account of what was happening _outside_ the bunker-like premises. Dumbledore did not trust Minister Fudge to do the Right Thing in a crisis. Therefore, he wanted to be notified instantly if the night's Auror raid went awry, so that he could send in those members of the Order not already part of the Auror assault team – knowing full well that Fudge would never ask for his help. Not anymore.

So, Arthur kept an eye on things. And felt as though he was being watched. As if someone else was keeping an eye on him. Paranoia crept up his spine, tickling his tired senses.

The candle flared.

Most people ascribed the little candle on Arthur's desk to his infamous obsession with all things Muggle. It was a plain little light. Its only peculiar, and little known, trait was a predisposition on its part for having a tiny rotating eyeball appear at irregular intervals inside its burning flame. Except for the 'irregular' bit, the eye was the very image of Constant Vigilance. It spun around like a mad thing. The flame flickered moodily.

Arthur drew a deep breath, and sighed. Here were the news he'd been waiting for. But he'd been waiting to receive them in some other form. The form of the flickering flame meant that the news were most likely bad. Very bad. Dire, even.

Arthur put his left forefinger into the flame. It crackled. He winced. The scenery changed.

* * *

'What are they?'

It was the first thing she said on arriving in the Great Hall. She said it, and she waited, watching. She knew Snape and McGonagall had heard. Her steady gaze amplified her question, her demand for attention, for explanation, beyond mere verbal repetition. She waited.

Snorting, Snape stormed off to help maintain another part of the shields holding the strained walls together. The sound of crumbling stone and creaking wood filled the air, the students' frightened murmuring an anxious underscore.

McGonagall sighed, turned, and faced the inquisitive gaze of Hermione Granger. 'They,' she said, 'are the Origin.'

A grating, gleeful voice erupted behind her. 'Orgy? Wha's this about an orgy then?'

Two pairs of chillingly feline eyes, thin slits of vexation, locked on the intruder.

'Peeves,' said Peeves, saluting, as though they had not made the poltergeists questionable acquaintance far too long ago. 'Resident Morall Officicer tryin' t'inject a bit o'comic relief!'

'Please,' purred McGonagall, 'be so kind as to _relieve yourself_ somewhere else.'

Peeves, being not entirely suicidal, promptly boosted his personal morale by shooting off in quite the opposite direction.

Hermione turned back to the professor. 'Origin of what?'

'Magic, allegedly.' McGonagall sighed. 'They claim we stole it from them.' She glanced at the teachers toiling at the shielding. 'And now they want it back, presumably.'

'Did we?'

'Steal it? Depends on your point of view, I suppose. Most important things do.' Her brows furrowed further. 'It's all rather complex and shrouded in myth. No one quite knows the truth anymore, I suspect. Except the Origin. They are, after all, immortal. The question is: Are they telling the Truth?' She quirked a smile at the look of surprise on Hermione's face. 'If, that is, you can be immortal without being alive in the first place. The Origin are, it would seem, pure energy and thought. They exist. Like water and air.' The floor trembled. McGonagall snorted. 'With a grudge the size of Mount Helena.' She turned around. 'I'm afraid I must assist my staff, Miss Granger. There will be ample time for discussion once this crisis has been resolved.'

Following McGonagall to Snape, Hermione did not feel quite so confident.

Leaving off questions like _Why have _I_ never heard of this before_ for later, she asked whether steel was the only thing that could kill these Origin.

McGonagall smiled. 'Yes, I heard the sword proved useful. I'm – proud of you for protecting my House in my absence, Miss Granger. But, yes, steel is our sole weapon against the Origin, thus far. Though it's more a case of short-circuiting them than killing them.'

Hermione glanced about, counting. 'Then how will we defend ourselves,' she asked in a voice suggesting that a Great Hall filled with exactly four sword-wielding pieces of armour was not an ideal place to make a last stand, all things considered.

Snape spun around, his eyes simmering with ire. '_We_ will not engage in physical combat with the Origin, the way you seem strangely keen on doing, Granger! _We_ will stay put and the let the _Ministry_ deal with it!'

'The Ministry,' said McGonagall, 'will send Aurors trained in combat using steel weapons. They've kept a small unit ready in case of Origin attack, even though it's been over a hundred years since they last appeared.' She quirked an eyebrow. 'For once, the Ministry appears to be _prepared_.'

Hermione wasn't reassured. 'When will they get here? Have you spoken to—'

Snape's anger flared again. 'Of course we've contacted them, you silly girl! Do you think just because your fabulous – sadly _defunct_ – trio has saved Hogwarts in the past that the entire staff is _incompetent_?'

'We've sent owls,' said McGonagall. 'The Floo lines are too unstable.'

That brought another question to the forefront of Hermione's mind. 'What's happened to – _magic_?'

Snape turned to her, having just hurled a spell at the slowly cracking wall in poorly disguised panic. His perpetual sneer slid into a full-on grimace. 'Tell me, Miss Granger: Were you born a nosy, meddlesome busybody, or is that another thing you've caught from one of those precious old books of yours? As much as I'd like to say I can manage the Hall's defences on my own, I do require the Headmistress's assistance.' He leered. 'Think you can _spare_ her, Granger?' He turned back to his spellwork, muttering, 'And spare _me_ your incessant questioning.'

McGonagall smiled apologetically at Hermione. 'Professor Snape feels there's – a time and a place for questioning minds.' There was a snort behind her, and she added, pointedly: 'For we do, of course, _encourage_ such minds at this school.' It was a sore subject that had gotten thoroughly infected since McGonagall became Headmistress. Hermione was sure Snape would have been fired had it not been for his work for the Order.

McGonagall gestured to one of the tables. 'Take a seat, and I'll explain all – or what little we know – as soon as we've secured the shields.' She turned around, decisively, and Hermione swallowed back her questions, a bitter aftertaste in her mind. She limped over to an empty stretch of bench, pulled out her adopted wand and began healing her wounds.

The spells were simple. She could peruse the Hall while performing them (repeated times, to reach normal results). Ron sat at the centre of a pile of young Gryffindor, a first-year on his knee. He seemed to be telling them some story, probably featuring both her and Harry, keeping their minds off reality. He reminded Hermione of his father, telling his plentiful offspring tales of those strange, fascinating Muggles. She looked away. She did _not_ need to contemplate what a good father her non-boyfriend would one day make.

Seeing the students at their House tables, as though waiting for dinner to arrive, Hermione thought about what a comfort habit could be, when the vicious unknown comes knocking. Or, to be more precise, comes to knock down your massive stone walls.

A stone house had saved three little pigs from a big, bad wolf. But these Origin did more than huff and puff. Hermione looked over at the teachers and Aurors at work on the shields. With tentative relief, she noted that their attempts seemed successful.

She leaned back, closed her eyes, and let Three Little Pigs distract her troubled mind. The noise around her provided an unusual soundtrack for the silent fairytale flickering before her inner vision: The distant sound of Ron's acting out exciting scenes to her left, forced intellectual discourse from the Ravenclaws behind, timid singing from the huddle of Hufflepuffs to her right, spells bellowed all around, and an odd noise just on the edge of hearing.

Her eyes snapped open.

She sat up. Listening.

There. There it was. There _they_ were. Sounds easily mistaken for the background noise of an overfull Great Hall. But it wasn't. It didn't fit. She looked about, seeking some source of the sound, but – like incompetent pop singers indulging in playback – it just _didn't_ _fit_.

It almost seemed like an echo, of some previous gathering in the Hall. Or, she realised, the echo of another Hall entirely.

Ignoring the gasps around her, Hermione threw herself onto the floor, pressing her ear to the tiles. She listened. She heard. She saw the big, bad wolf climb down the chimney, falling into the boiling cauldron.

And she knew.

* * *

'A trap. 'Twas a bloody trap!'

The hallway was dark, faint moonlight filtering through lichen-frosted windows. Arthur would have squinted if he could, and in the safe candlelight of his office, he probably did. But it mattered little. Despite the greenish gloom, Arthur could survey the frightening scene with perfect clarity. The magical eye he co-inhabited registered shades and layers of reality beyond what any carbon-based being's synaptic nodes could ever process. The first few times he'd linked to the eye, he'd been sick for hours afterwards.

Arthur got a good look at walls, floor, and ceiling as the eye spun around like some particularly lively gyroscope. He got a good look at the eight Aurors leaning against the walls, tense and drooping, alert and weary, like animals hunted near the point of total exhaustion. He saw a member of the medical field unit crouched over a wounded Auror, and another body already abandoned further down the hallway. Through the ceiling, he saw worrisome shadows prowl about.

'We've tried to get through to headquarters, but whatever they've used to disable our wands has cut off everything but this,' Mad-Eye muttered, his eye glancing at the Muggle-style lighter flickering in his left hand. 'Let Fudge know we're most likely dealing with some sort of Origin trap, whatever made _them_ creep out of their stinkin'oles.'

'Origin?' said Arthur, hearing his own voice only faintly. 'Are you sure?'

'No. But whoever they are, they set up the Death Eaters too, so we're fighting a bloody war on two fronts until those pureblood idiots get it through their thick skulls we're in the same leakin' rowboat and they need t'pick up an oar!' Moody growled.

There was commotion in the distance. Screams and echoing, repeated blasts. The Aurors readied themselves for retreat, two picking up their fallen friend, the rest forming a protective circle.

'Tell Fudge his precious, strange Inspector was one of the first to go down, and that old Alastor Moody has seized command of his pitiful excuse for a police force, consequences and procedures be damned. That should make him send reinforcements without delay, posh git.'

'Ehm.'

'The exact wording should do it, Arthur. And do hurry. But,' Moody held up a bulky, elongated Muggle object of black steel, 'before y'do, do tell me how to use this damn thing.'

Arthur hesitated. He wasn't _quite_ sure how to use the Damn Thing. Though he had a fair grasp of what it _did_, to other things, and other people.

And he was pretty sure the Damn Thing was called an Aykay-47.

* * *

'We're not _safe_ here!'

'I ASSURE you, Miss Granger, even with failing magic, we can keep these shields up for a VERY long—' Snape broke off at a loud CRACK from the Gryffindor table.

All eyes focused in amazement on the frayed, dismal figure of Dobby the house elf, staggering about on the table, arms flailing, screeching: 'FLY MASTERS! FLY! BAD-THINGS ARE COMING!'

The entire Hall froze in incomprehension, staring at the elf.

The entire Hall, save one.

As Hermione ran for the far wall, a deafening CRACK enveloped her. Tables that usually served up delightful culinary feasts broke out in a decidedly less delightful array of warriors and monsters, all clearly willing to make this a Last Supper for everyone but themselves. It was a meal of nightmares, a mortal cuisine – the end of the siege.

As the strategizing part of Hermione's brain put in additional overtime, she ran backwards, shouting highly objectionable obscenities at every foe within earshot. Had Common Sense not called in sick until further notice, it would surely have suffered major coronary on the spot.

What Hermione did do _on the spot_ was fall down, in a planned yet unsurprisingly painful manner. Blue bolts streaked through the air above her. She leapt back up. Using the Origin deathrays (there she went again, lolloping into B-movie lala-land) to her advantage had worked before, and being creative was, she decided, definitely secondary to staying alive. Hermione was a practical girl. Though, throwing herself headfirst into a blown open food-lift shaft, she had to wonder if she wasn't, perchance, practically potty as well.

* * *

No one manned the Ministry lifts in the middle of the night, it being visiting time only for people who rarely took kindly to such assistance. So Arthur Weasley paced in perfect solitude, and imperfect peace of mind, wishing for a speedier ascent.

The few messages travelling through the complex at this late hour flapped tiredly out of his circular way. When the Floo connection on his floor had failed, he'd considered sending a written message but had eventually decided Moody's specific wording was better delivered by mouth, even if this now meant he had to be in the same room as the irritable Minister to do it.

When the lift pinged to a stop, Arthur Weasley was in too much of a hurry to notice the crawling, crippled messages crumpling beneath his feet.

* * *

There was war in the Hogwarts kitchens.

If you're looking to throw an indoor war, there are few places more suitable than a large-scale kitchen. Plenty of sharp edges, and plenty of places to hide from them. A multitude of substances ready to be misused in ways only the most vengeful of chefs would in his wildest, most murderous fantasies contemplate.

The medieval warlords who greeted unwanted visitors with feasts featuring little beyond generous helpings of boiling oil never considered a more wholesome alternative for the early ladder-risers. And they certainly didn't contemplate the tactical advantage large amounts of boiling porridge could give a minor army of highly aggrieved house elves, levitating pots of the aggressive breakfast over the exposed heads of an opposing force of Origin origin.

All in all, kitchens provide excellent locations not only for various species of fungus and rat, but also for very messy minor wars. Very _loud_ and messy. Which was why no one noticed the small, potty feline streaking towards the exit, dodging legs and oatmeal bombs, thanking its lucky gas fur-balls for making the kitchens the final destination of the food-lift it had just tumbled gracelessly out of.

* * *

Cornelius Fudge felt pleased with himself. It was not an uncommon sensation.

Cornelius Fudge felt pleased with himself for many reasons, foremost among them on this particular night was the fact that the Chief Inspector he had personally appointed had just handed him the Death Eaters on a plate. Figuratively speaking.

Acting on the advice of Inspector Strange – that most splendid fellow – Fudge had trusted a delectable piece of intelligence to the extent that he had sent nearly the entire wizarding police force, Aurors and all, under the competent lead of that same Inspector Strange, to come down like a mighty hammer on a large Death Eater meeting. And it had paid off.

'I wanted to tell you in person,' the Inspector had said ('and Floo silence is still in effect, for precautionary reasons'). 'I wanted to tell you in person: They've fallen into our trap. Every last one of them.' And he had smiled, and Fudge had congratulated him any number of times. And the wine would be on its way up as soon as the fireplace stopped sputtering.

Times were good. Fudge felt pleased with himself, and with the world at large. But mostly with himself, having masterminded it all.

And then Arthur Weasley burst through the door.

There was no denying that the Weasley's were an old and well respected pureblood family. Still, there was something quite _upsetting_ about them. Far too many children, for one thing. It brought about a sort of inflation of the bloodline that was most unfortunate and ill-considered. And far too much of the boisterous offspring would undoubtedly marry into less distinguished bloodlines, diluting the ancient Weasley magic. There were simply not enough pureblood youngsters left. And they could hardly marry within the family. Especially considering the amount of boys Arthur and Molly had spawned. And, no, _such_ connections were not to be thought of, even _outside_ the family. Marriage was, after all, a Pillar of Society, and not to be defiled by such _impropriety_. Fudge had very strong views about this.

In fact, Cornelius Fudge had very strong views about everything. Not having the mental dexterity to grasp the finer points of ideas, he found it necessary to have _strong views_ about them in order to hang on at all. (This is, coincidentally, why there is often so little difference between the local village idiot and the political leaders of the World.)

And Cornelius Fudge had _strong views_ about the Weasleys. They were a nuisance, and a blustering, bumbling, boisterous bloody nuisance at that.

'What can I do for you, Arthur?' said Fudge, smiling congenially.

Arthur Weasley made no reply, staring in a most peculiar manner at the Inspector.

Fudge's smile turned into a beaming grin. 'You'll be pleased to hear, no doubt,' he bubbled, 'that the Inspector and his men have secured the mansion and captured _every last one_ of the leading Death Eaters! I'd say that rather reduces this – _war_,' he displayed his distaste with all the subtlety of a drunk mime artist, 'to a personal skirmish between You-Know-Who and Albus Dumbledore, which we can no doubt deal with in due time.' He grinned again. '_Splendid_ news, wouldn't you say, Arthur?'

Arthur had at this point registered that he was, in fact, being addressed and had turned his noticeably divided attention to Fudge. 'Splendid? Oh, yes. Indeed.'

'You don't seem overly thrilled, I must say, Mr Weasley,' said the Inspector.

'What? I don't? No, maybe – maybe I don't.' His laugh barely even convinced Fudge of its sincerity. 'Long night, you know. Terribly long. _Terrible_ shock – _good_ terrible shock! _Terribly_ good terrible shock! _Terrific, _even!' Arthur grinned like a madman. Fudge decided he probably was. 'In-_deed_!' exclaimed Arthur. '_Most_ – gratifying!' He backed towards the door. '_Must_ tell Molly. She'll be _terrifie_— _terribly _pleased! Terrible-_bly!_ B-bye, now!' With a grin that could have knocked over a grumpy rhinoceros and a wave that knocked over a small vase, Arthur exited.

'Strange man, that,' said Fudge.

'Indeed. _Most_ peculiar.'

* * *

Hermione padded, keeping close to the walls, towards the Slytherin sector of the upper dungeons ('upper' being relative, she supposed, to the Pits of Hell, and an altogether inappropriate designation since going there was always a real downer). She hissed and shook her head, peeved at her prattling mind. Her mind was not happy with the Current State of Affairs, taking every chance to ignore them, and _she_ was not happy with her mind. That this implied that she and her mind were separate entities – establishing her as firmly _out_ of her mind – was something she'd rather not dwell on.

She needed to _focus_.

Reason for being in the downer dungeons: _Finding Malfoy._

Reason for believing Malfoy to be found in downer dungeons: _He wasn't in the Hall._

Reason for _noticing_ his not being in the Hall: _Unknown. She'd ask her mind once she got back to it._

Of course, Malfoy's absence could mean merely that he had been killed by the Origin. But she doubted it. The Slytherins would have been in a right state. And there was so rarely _anything_ right about them, she'd have been bound to notice.

Nightly excursions had led Hermione to the conclusion that Malfoy spent his nights in very deep – most likely unnatural – sleep these days, as oxymoronic as it sounded. Maybe he had slept soundly through the attack, drugged out on Death Eater potions. It certainly had a more – Slytherin ring to it.

In any case, Hermione needed help. Everyone else was in the Hall, captives of these Origin creatures. She would simply have to make do with Malfoy.

_Why me?_ she thought. _Why **me**?_

* * *

Like the small, inconspicuous candle on his desk, many were the things ascribed to Arthur Weasley's fascination with all things Muggle. The fascination itself was, however, not ascribed to anything in particular save the fact that Arthur was Arthur and, _well_, we all know _Arthur_, don't we? Now, had this same Arthur been a less good-natured and guileless soul, he might have felt vaguely offended by this line of reasoning, but, as it were, he didn't give it much thought; if any at all. Which was also roughly the amount of thought he himself gave to the origin of his fascination with all things Muggle. The foundation of his fascination held, in short, no fascination for him.

Had he dissected the development of his own character and its defining obsessions with as great a zeal as he did every possible Muggle contraption he came across, Arthur would have found that his very fist contact with Muggle mechanics had come at the age of six, through his then already ancient and now quite firmly dead great, great grandfather. This curious old gentleman had told young Arthur stories of how they survived in the olden days, during the last Origin War, when magic was leeched from the land and all those who did not flee had to live like Muggles. The stories had been enchanting, and some part of Arthur had never forgotten, nor ceased to try to understand how those wondrous contraptions might have worked, and did work.

But, in addition to the Muggle machines, his great, great grandfather had also spoken – darkly, seriously – of the Origin that the rest of his generation seemed to have purposely forgot. He showed young Arthur his trophies of war, among them a small blue ring of incomparable beauty.

The exact same kind of ring he had seen on the supposedly dead Chief Inspector Strange some minutes before.

Arthur's mind was troubled beyond coherency. He had to get to his desk, to warn Moody, had to get a message to Dumbledore, somehow.

Treachery. The Ministry had been compromised.

Panic pushed its unwelcome way into the lift with him. As the doors closed, Arthur turned around.

Inspector Strange was watching him.

* * *

The room smelled.

It smelled of dust.

It smelled of dust for the very simple reason that it was covered in that very same substance.

It smelled of dust because the very air, stale and stagnant, was imbued with it.

It smelled of dust because it didn't smell of living.

It smelled of dust, Hermione decided, with the single-minded evil intent of making her sneeze. After all, this was _Malfoy's_ room. (A prefect perk. Though hers was a paragon of cleanliness in comparison.)

In addition to the overwhelming dust sensation, the room was infested by an oppressive, mute darkness. Hermione wished she hadn't had to change back into human form to unlock the door. Cat eyes would have been a blessing. Eyes now slow and human, she stood just inside the doorway, watching contours emerge, as though a blank room was lazily redrawing itself in response to an unexpected, uninvited visitor.

There were three big bookcases filled with books. Old, important-looking, presumably very interesting books. Hermione's feet itched to throw her body forth, into the dusty armchair wedged between two bookcases. Her mind craved the distractions the tomes could offer – wanting to escape further into the universe of Thought to escape an outside world of Terror.

An ancient-looking book lay on a bedside table, less seductive in its solitude, but an acceptable destination since beside it, on a plushly musty bed, lay the still body of one Draco Malfoy.

* * *

Much to the surprise of Minister Fudge's personal secretary, Chief Inspector Strange was talking into a small black box with a shiny stick at the top.

'We may have a – complication,' said Strange, still looking at the closed lift doors. 'No. I don't think it's anything major. He's a bumbling fool; stopping him before he gets word to the Phoenix will not be difficult. In fact,' he continued, lowering his gaze to follow the trail of crawling messages on the floor, 'I rather think our problem will take care of itself.'

'Excuse me?' said the secretary, advancing hesitantly towards Strange. 'Is that – a _Muggle_ device?'

Strange smiled pleasantly. 'Very perceptive. It is indeed.' He put the walkie-talkie back into his pocket. 'This is too, actually,' he said and pulled out the gun.

A mere second after Strange had shot the secretary, Fudge's very best wine-glass crashed onto his expensive carpet – thankfully (due to the Floo _still_ being down) not carrying any actual wine with it.

In the descending lift, messages fell twitching to the floor, one by one by three.

* * *

Draco Malfoy would make a beautiful corpse. On a purely aesthetic level. In fact, Hermione thought, he would probably be more beautiful dead than alive, since it would make him rather less likely to open his mouth and spoil the pretty picture. As it were, Malfoy was merely deeply attractive and completely repulsive at the very same time. It sort of evened out in the end. Though, she had to admit, he looked quite beautiful there, a tumbled Greek sculpture in the dusty darkness. This, she decided, was because he looked pretty dead. (_Pretty_, her disowned mind sniggered.)

Pretty dead, but not quite. There was a faint pulse, but little presence of mind. (Maybe she could lend him hers. It was only being a nuisance, after all.)

She'd tried shaking him and shouting, to no avail. Time, like Patience, was something she had far too little of. She could hear movement further down the corridor.

She slapped him.

'GAAAAAHHH!'

Well, that did it.

Malfoy glared at her. 'GRANGER? What the hell are you doing?'

'Trying to save you. Though I don't know why.'

'Well, _I_ certainly don't!'

Hermione grabbed his arm, hauled him off the bed and towards the door in one swift move.

'And exactly _what_ do you propose to save me from, you madwoman?' cried Malfoy, stumbling along in befuddled bafflement. On '—woman' they entered the corridor. There were huge, spideresque – yet hardly picturesque – creatures lumbering up towards them.

'Pick one.'

Malfoy blanched. 'I – I'd – rather not.'

'Then please _cooperate_! And put that wand away – it doesn't work on them.'

Draco lowered his wand, looked at it, looked at the creatures, back at the wand, and said, in a distant tone of voice (for his mind was already running away at this point): 'I could – poke out an eye?'

There were quite a lot of eyes. Even more fangs. Draco pocketed his wand.

'COME ON!' shouted Hermione, rushing the way of Draco's runaway mind.

Draco turned. And he ran.

* * *

When the lift had shuddered almost to a halt, Arthur had decided to take his chances on the roof of the wooden device. However, once there, there was little to do besides wait for an opportunity to present itself. As it was a magical lift, there were no ropes to climb up, and the walls were sheer stone.

In fact, Arthur wasn't quite sure why he'd climbed through the little hatch and onto the roof in the first place. Still, as the lift dropped away from under his feet, he vaguely recalled that it had had something to do with not wanting the ceiling to crash down on him.

He could do the crashing quite well on his own.

He plunged downwards.

'Win- Wi- Win- WinGARDium LeviooohSAAAAAAHH!' cried Mr Weasley, and he knew, through his youngest son's long and tiresome harangues, experiencing some kind of strangely uplifting morbid amusement, that little Miss Weasley would have thoroughly disapproved of his unorthodox intonation.

Then he blacked out.

* * *

For some reason, he was keeping pace with the Mudblood. He pushed himself nearly to the limit, but not quite, and certainly not beyond, though the situation was undoubtedly dire enough to inspire supernatural strength.

Their pursuers were closing in quickly. He couldn't outrun them however hard he tried. So he might at least have company in death. The curving corridor had no side exits, no stairs, nothing to give them that extra edge. They could but run. So he kept pace. But _why_? Was this some badly timed nobility; a touch of chivalry from the Malfoys of old? And for a _Mudblood_? What _would_ father say?

The curve of the corridor strained his legs, wearied his soul; no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. Another curve, and another, and—

—_Weasley?_

The red-headed menace was pulling something out of a tattered bag slung across his shoulder. Draco's step faltered. Weasley might slow the beasts down. _Sacrificial lamb_.

Oh, father _would_ be proud.

'DOWN!' bellowed Weasley, pulling back his arm.

A hand on Draco's back – Granger's – pushed him down before he could contemplate the consequences. He hit the hard floor in a burst of bafflement. Small spherical objects flew overhead.

There was a mighty bang, a composite of many weaker cracks, pops, and fizzles. Multicoloured light filled the tunnel, tinting the dense, white smoke billowing across them in all the hues of the rainbow. Shrieks and growls erupted behind them, but neither claws nor fangs ripped into their exposed backs. The fireworks had slowed the beasts down.

Ronald Weasley emerged from the smoke, offering his hand to Granger, his brilliantly red hair and terrified expression turning him into a gangly, cheap, demented clown amidst the psychedelic colours.

Draco pushed himself off the floor and hurried after Granger and Weasley, already vanished in the smoke. After a mere few steps, an arm shout out of the smoke, grabbed him and yanked him sideways into another corridor. The smoke cleared, and Weasley's bent head greeted him, a beacon of red. Granger leaned against a wall, echoing her boyfriends deep, shuddering breaths.

'Well,' huffed Draco, petulant purely by habit, having scant energy to feel anything but genuinely exhausted, 'what _now_?'

Granger's eyes unfocused. Her brow furrowed. Weasley regarded her with blatant, unwavering confidence. Draco wondered if she hadn't just zoned out from pure shock. He did, after all, feel pretty close to that himself.

'The Deeper dungeons,' said Hermione, eyes still distant. 'They're right underneath, aren't they?'

'Yes,' said Draco, 'but they're _sealed off_.' What did she expect them to do? Sink through the floor?

'We must be—' Hermione broke off, turning to Draco. 'Do you know of any – rooms – directly beneath the kitchens?' Her look made it plain: She had a _plan_.

Hearing growls from the dissipating smoke, Draco wasted no time. He turned and ran for a side tunnel, shouting 'This way!' over his shoulder.

* * *

At the end of That Way were three doors in a row, one of which attacked Ron with a plummeting pile of buckets. For Draco Malfoy, this was apparently vintage comic relief.

There was nothing comic about the relief Hermione felt as she finally managed to spell one of the other two doors open. But she had little need for comedy, not expecting their pursuers to laugh themselves to death anytime soon.

Relief turned to despair as the room behind the door revealed itself to be a simple storage room. A place where only rats and spiders dined. And they were rather too big for escape through a rat-sized hole in the wall.

She hurried back into the hall, finding the third door open and Malfoy's wand illuminating the inside of a small, wood-panelled office, covered in dust. Her sense of relief made a tentative reappearance.

'Oh, _good_,' said Malfoy, approaching the desk. 'We'll write a note saying we're too sick to be eaten today and forge our parents' signatures.' He turned to Ron, who looked around the room with the obvious befuddlement Malfoy was trying to conceal in tired witticisms. 'Though that would only be impressive in my case, of course.'

'Look for an opening,' said Hermione, already running alongside the right-hand wall.

Perhaps giving Hermione the benefit of the doubt, Malfoy waited till after he had found the opening to say: 'Jolly good. We can order a last supper. Brilliant plan, Granger. Allow me to worship your ugly feet.' Ron used _his_ feet to kick the wannabe worshipper.

Meanwhile, Hermione stared at the food-lift. The _tiny_ food-lift. She had a plan; repetitive if not brilliant. Or rather, she had _had_ a plan; decidedly _not_ brilliant. A plan that – probably due to her self-preservation instincts' being doped up on adrenalin – had entirely failed to encompass Ron and Malfoy (neither of whom, she was pretty sure, had the ability to transform into small animals, Malfoy's brief and involuntary stint as a ferret notwithstanding). The dark hole in the wall stared at her like some particularly annoying plot-hole in a badly constructed novel. (A novel that, quite frankly, had used the Escaping Through A Food-Lift device ad nauseam.) Hermione felt as though her life was moving in plot-less circles, one bloody action scene after another, with no discernable goal in sight. It was as though Hogwarts had turned into an enormous PC platform game and that, in constantly moving _down_ one level, she was going about it in quite the wrong way.

'It leads to the Deeper Dungeons, I think,' she said, by way of doubtful explanation.

'It's rather – erhm – _small_,' said Ron.

'_Gryffindors!_' huffed Draco, smashing a paperweight into the wood panelling beneath the opening. 'Noble and courageous and utterly stumped when faced with the need for some good,' he tugged away a piece of panelling, 'old-fashioned,' Ron and Hermione tugged along, 'destruction of property!'

The bared hole in the stone floor looked dark and decidedly uninviting. Gentlemen as they were, the stances of both Ron and Malfoy indicated that, _by all means_, the ancient courtesy of ladies first was to be observed. Ron then made it quite clear that he thought himself far more masculine than Malfoy – who was not one to seem a coward, or take the rear when Spiders from Hell were hopping about.

Thus it happened that Hermione Granger was shortly followed down a dusty lift-shaft by Draco Malfoy, who in turn was under the pronounced threat of Ron Weasley's _accidentally_ slipping heavily onto that pretty-boy ferret head of his.

'Hurry up!' ordered Hermione. 'We're sitting ducks in here!'

'More like three sooty Santa-Clauses stuck up a bloody chimney,' muttered Malfoy, who nonetheless hurried his descent. Roasted Duck was not on his list of preferred future careers.

'Actually,' said Hermione, stopping, 'we – eh – _are_ stuck.'

Plot-holes, plan-holes, food-lifts have such very _small_ holes. Of course, the wood panel massacre should have alerted her to the problem but, alas, her mind was on an extended if erratic holiday.

_She_ could get out. The boys could not. She explained this, carefully leaving out the first part.

It was not received with general cheer.

'I always wanted to die in a chimney,' said Malfoy, with the pompous air of a suffering aristocrat.

'It's not a chimney.'

'Leave my delusions alone, Mudblood.'

'Wait a bit!' exclaimed Ron, rummaging in his pockets. 'I've still got two Weasley's Wailing Whompers! We could blow our way out!'

Draco snorted. 'Your family is quick to alliterate, isn't it?'

'We are NOT illiterate!'

'I did not say—' Malfoy began, before Hermione's low growl reached his ears.

'Malfoy! Shut. Up.'

Malfoy clamped his mouth shut, the inexplicable sensation of being perched atop an angry lioness creeping over him.

Ron calmed, somewhat, at this. 'Hermione, you'll have to climb up a bit…'

''M on it,' came the muffled reply.

'Granger, you're not _on_ it, you're _under_ my robes!'

'That explains the smell then.'

'I do not smell!'

'Malfoy,' said Ron. 'Shut up!' And then he dropped the Wailing Whompers.

There was a wail.

'Great. Advertise our whereabouts, why don't you.'

There was a whomp.

There was smoke everywhere, but the passage was clear.

'Now, Granger.' Malfoy coughed. 'If you'd be so kind as to remove your face from my crotch?'

In the darkness above, Ron Weasley could manage no more eloquent objection to the mentioned placement of Hermione Granger's face than an incoherent splutter followed by an inelegant downwards kick.

'OW! _You little shit!_'

Four seconds later, a Granger-Malfoy-Weasley pile could be observed through the dissipating smoke of a dark and dank dungeon.

'_Men!_' huffed the nether regions of the pile.

There was no reply.

* * *

'Mind the gap.'

Julia Hartwood found herself more minding the glinting teeth and the yaps than the hardly present gap between floor and troubled soil.

'Stand clear of the closing doors.'

And she wondered how many more times the hyenas would heed the automated warning as the doors opened and closed, opened and closed.

This was not what she had expected when stepping onto the ten fifteen from Paddington. Though, after a hard day's work, she hadn't really expected much at all, beyond being bumped and absentmindedly humped by endless numbers of fellow commuters.

But she _certainly_ hadn't expected the Serengeti.

Quite suddenly, and much to everyone's tightly packed surprise, the pitch blackness of the train windows had been torn open by flashes of moonlight, mottled by shadows of dense foliage. But while this had been worrying, the train had still been swishing along with comforting regularity at that point. The real problems came when they burst into full-fledged moonlight and the wide-open spaces of the African savannah. It seemed as though the grassland had more _definite views_ about the layout of proper African wilderness than the preceding grove, and had consequently, and quite abruptly, done away with the misplaced Tube tracks.

The crash had _happened_ for quite some Time. Everyone could be in unspoken agreement on this temporal point. Except for those who were already dead.

The radio was dead, as was the hippie driver. And the backup power was fading.

'Stand cleahr oofh theah cloahssenng doooah—' Click.

Well. At least the doors stopped on a closing note.

If it was all an elaborate joke, in the dead of night, the hyenas were the only ones laughing.

* * *

'So, what you're saying is, these aren't the Deeper Dungeons?'

'No. Yes. I mean, yes, that's what I'm saying, yes.'

'Glad we cleared that up, Granger. So, what are these then? The Not-So-Deep-Dungeons? The Superficial Dungeons?'

'I believe it's the guards' living quarters.' A bed which had no doubt been comfortable some hundred years ago seemed to corroborate her assumption.

Hermione glanced back at her two male companions and heaved a sigh. 'You know, we'd get out of here much faster if you'd help me look for another exit!' Then she swept off – to help herself, since no one else seemed much inclined.

Draco turned to Ron. 'Bossy, isn't she?'

'Shut up, Malfoy.'

================================================ 

**NOTES**

-- I'm terribly sorry about the lateness of this chapter. Having edited draft zero (written last summer), I decided that the chapter needed a complete rewrite, and that one subplot should be heavily reduced in favour of another (the Ministry one), which was then greatly expanded. This necessitated both a lot of additional writing and editing as well as research. Which took time. As did RL stuff. But mostly, my superior procrastination skills are to blame. I will improve, really I will. _[nods earnestly]_

-- As usual, if you want to be notified of fic updates, please join my Yahoo!Group:  
_groups_[dot]_yahoo_[dot]_com_[slash]_group_[slash]_reading_[underscore]_retreat_  
or friend my Livejournal - _kayen_[dot]_livejournal_[dot]_com_  
whichever suits you best. :) 

-- This fic is also archived at skyehawke[dot]com, under 'Andreas' in the 'Author Directory'. FF won't allow linking, so I can't give you better directions than that. Still, I'd advice you to visit skyehawke, if only because it's far superiour to ff net, in oh-so-many-ways. _[loves skyehawke]_

-- This is one of those pivotal chapters, plot-wise. I do hope I didn't forget anything. _[checks notes again, and again, and misplaces them entirely]_

-- I freely admit that my research into the London Underground could have been more thorough, and that I have no idea _what_ the food they serve their personnel is really like. I would, however, like to thank Celeste for helping me with Tube terminology. 

-- There's more to the Origin than meets the eye. Quite often, it's a fist that meets the nose, and a knife that meets the heart. 

-- _[kicks ff net]_ Uploading here takes a million years, give or take a few millennia. Why do I even bother? _[kicks ff net, again]_


	7. Hoghalls: A History

**Previously…**

Sometime during the summer between Harry's sixth and seventh year at Hogwarts, the Dursley's were made aware of their right to terminate Harry's magical education. Acting on the advice of a wizard lawyer, they pulled Harry out of Hogwarts and sent him to a place where he cannot be found by magical means. The upside to this is that no one is able to find him. The downside, however, is that no one is able to find him, apparently not even Dumbledore (who's left management of Hogwarts to McGonagall). Which is a state of affairs entirely unacceptable to Hogwarts #1 control freak, Miss Hermione Granger. 

During nightly walks through Hogwarts, Hermione, now an Animagus secretly trained by professor McGonagall, befriends Draco Malfoy while in her cat form. She discovers that he is even more obsessed with Harry's disappearance than she and, when all else fails, she tricks him into trying to use his contacts and Dark Arts skills to find Harry, simply by publicly suggesting he could never do it. 

Ron cannot muster the courage to ask Hermione out on a date, and his coulda-woulda-shoulda-been girlfriend has grown tired of his inactivity while feeling that it's too late for her to make a move. She tries to transfer her amorous attention to a young Auror who's unfortunately killed one late night right before her eyes as an army of patchwork ("Not a dog, nor a cat, the hulking creature looked made up of bits from different animals, inexpertly pieced together.") monsters attack Hogwarts. 

"The beast pounced. Terry hurled a hex at it. Unaffected but annoyed, the creature turned its head and closed its jaws around the young man's arm while slamming him to the ground. With a sweeping motion of its head, the beast severed arm from body. The loud rip, squelch, and pop inspired a violent churning of Hermione's stomach and an acrid taste in her mouth." 

Ron, on the other hand, has been out drinking, drowning his woes, but arriving home to a besieged Hogwarts proves a very sobering experience. 

"Ron felt his spirits rise a bit as he approached the end of the tunnel and the opening beneath the Whomping Willow. When, upon emerging from the tunnel, he saw the corpse of an Auror looking far too much like human casserole and three massive wolf-shapes prowling just outside the reach of the Willow, he felt not only spirits but also whatever else might have been in his stomach rise rapidly through his throat." 

Withdrawing all students and teachers to the fortified Great Hall while awaiting specialist reinforcements from the Ministry seems a good plan, until the Origin (according to McGonagall: energy beings who claim that humans stole magic from them, and now they want it back) footsoldiers use the tables to transport up from the kitchen. 

"As Hermione ran for the far wall, a deafening CRACK enveloped her. Tables that usually served up delightful culinary feasts broke out in a decidedly less delightful array of warriors and monsters, all clearly willing to make this a Last Supper for everyone but themselves. It was a meal of nightmares, a mortal cuisine - the end of the siege." 

Despite the Origin's ability to suck magic out of their surroundings, and the ensuing danger of even attempting transportation by magical means, Ron Disapparates after Hermione (who's just flung herself head first down a food lift). In the upper dungeons, Hermione discovers Draco Malfoy in a comatose sleep. As the only other human not trapped in the Hall, she shakes him awake, requesting his help and, in doing so, saving him from the Origin. Then they run into Ron. 

Together, they escape downwards, into the Deeper Dungeons. Though not quite. First they have to get through a 'midlevel' where the guards of the Deeper Dungeons once lived. 

Meanwhile, Arthur Weasley, working overtime on a mysterious case involving Tube trains taking short detours all over the globe, finds himself in the middle of another occupation as the Origin trick Minister Fudge into sending all available security - Aurors and all - to a Death Eater meeting, leaving the Ministry vulnerable. Here too, the Origin somehow siphon off all magic, causing Arthur's magically powered lift to plunge into the depths of the Ministry, but not before he himself has vacated it, preferring to free-fall with a bit of barely working Wingardium Leviosa in the mix. 

Mad-Eye Moody, taking charge of the Aurors after the traitorous Chief Inspector Strange leaves them stranded in a magically drained mansion with a bunch of highly annoyed Death Eaters, finds himself facing a small army of Muggle mercenaries equipped with something Arthur thinks is called an Akay-47. All means of communication are cut off except for a secret fire-based network (involving candles and Muggle lighters) Dumbledore has equipped his Order agents with. 

Having been unfortunate enough to step onto one of the geographically confused Tube trains, Julia Hartwood finds herself stranded on an African savannah together with a lot of frightened passengers and a bunch of laughing hyenas. 

**7. Hoghalls: A History**

'Well, there's an unusual way to die.'

Draco hoped his off-handed inflection would divert attention from the fact that _he_ was trying, by means of callous commentary, to divert attention from the rather more _girlish_ inflection of the scream by which he had _attracted_ the attention of the two now pressingly present Gryffindors. Meanwhile, his syntactically muddled thoughts were trying to divert as much of _his_ attention as possible from the ghastly sight before him.

With Ron invoking the dubious protection of excrement, Hermione already crouching before the engravings on the massive stone font, and Draco looking everywhere _but_ at the partially mummified wizard, diversions were universally successful.

The wizard, still pressed against the back of a petrified wooden chair, adhered to classic mummy fashion (the svelte and papery look rather than the plump maternal one) in all areas but one. His left arm grew _healthier_ near the stone font in which his outstretched hand still lay. It was pink and smooth and virtually pulsed with life in a (considering the otherwise omnipresent decay) very _unsettling_ manner.

The font itself put Draco in mind of a sinister Pensieve, complete with magical liquid lapping against its sides – and the wizard's fingers – almost as if it were trying to escape.

They leaned forward to take a closer look.

'I don't think we should touch that.'

'Thank you for the insight, Granger.'

'Wonder what he was doing.'

'Something unhealthy, by the looks of it.'

'Its placement,' said Hermione, indicating the font, 'seems to suggest some sort of security device.'

'Or,' said Draco, 'an inventive form of torture: The Dementor's Kiss in a Bowl.'

'Ew!' said Ron, face contorted. 'That's _vile_, Malfoy!'

'Exactly.' What better way to divert attention from unsettling corpses than deliberately unsettling the Weasel? A transference of unsettlement; like moving nothing from one empty place to another.

'You're sick,' Ron muttered and turned to the corpse. 'He's got a key 'round his neck. Maybe it's—' Moving to take the key, Ron placed his hand on the corpse's shoulder. Then everything happened very quickly.

The liquid pounced, surging into the wizard's arm, pushing the pinkness further, charging upwards, past the elbow, to the shoulder, and into Ron's hand. Hermione shouted, but her warning came too late.

Ron's mind exploded.

* * *

Wheezing up from unconsciousness, it took Arthur Weasley precisely three point five seconds to conclude that the pile of rubble beneath him was too large to be the after-effects of his nuptial bed, and that what had preceded his rough awakening _hadn't_ been a dream. Though, sliding and crawling towards the wall of the lift shaft, he felt perfectly justified in calling it a nightmare.

The Origin had returned. With the horrors of recent wizarding wars, cold or not, the Origin had been purposely forgotten. The Ministry hoped the ancient enemy had given up at last, retreated and dispersed, never to return.

It was tempting to forget an enemy who claimed _you_ were the villain. The Ministry wasn't disposed to discussing even the _possibility_ that the founders of their society might indeed have built their world on a lie, on a theft of power. They had enough on their unpalatable plate with Grindelwald, Voldemort, and the Death Eaters.

Nor did the Death Eaters care to promote the possibility of an Origin heritage. It was bad politics to imply that the purity of blood you had based your whole philosophy on might be stolen property. And the lineages of the oldest pureblood families stretched far enough into the unchartered past of the Wizarding world that no one could be quite sure _what_ had really happened.

Like so many cultures, theirs might have had its foundation in piracy, in the pillaging of power rather than portable property. But a disreputable history is an inconvenient history, especially when it makes lawmakers look like hypocrites, or when it calls into question the principles of nobility and purity you wield in your quest for greater power.

But beyond mere politics, the primary reason nearly all trace of the Origin had been erased from public historical records and school syllabi was the same that made people refer to Voldemort as _You-Know-Who_ or, indeed, _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_. Speak not of the demon and he shall not appear. It was a deeply rooted superstition, and a hope people clung to when they could do nothing else.

Like death, the Origin was a subject not easily discussed. In many ways, to wizards and witches, the Origin _were_ death. Few who lived in the Wizarding world could avoid growing dependent on its ever-present magic. Few had the opportunity or capacity to actively practice Muggle fighting skills. And few could hope to fend off an Origin attack. The Origin sucked magic out of the very air, and out of their victims. And all too often, those still fighting had to hack at the bodies of their fallen, puppeteered comrades.

They were nightmarish wars no one cared to remember.

The most recent war had been a relatively minor one, and it had been won almost by accident. The previous wars – dark ages of the Wizarding world – had been won more or less by proxy. Back then, when the Wizarding world hadn't yet become truly separated from the Muggle world, armies of mercenary Muggle fighters could be assembled without putting the magical society's independence in jeopardy.

When such possibilities were greatly reduced, when the newly formed Ministry through it best to avoid witch hunts through hiding from the Muggles, the importance of Muggleborn fighters increased, and their ability to survive where purebloods couldn't forever shifted the balance of power in the Wizarding world.

As Arthur squeezed through the crack in the lift's door, he thought of what powerful feelings envy and resentment were. He himself had experienced that envy. It was, perhaps, the primary reason for his obsession with all things Muggle. He envied a society not collectively addicted to the debilitating drug that magic, in some respects, had become to the Wizarding world. Technology, for all its incredible advances, didn't limit Muggles physically the way magic did. Even Wizarding _sports_ relied on magic. What was a Quidditch player without his broom?

Unless, Arthur conceded, the Quidditch player in question was Harry Potter, brought up by Muggles for good, if rather cynical, reasons.

And how Arthur wished Harry was there at that moment. Because Arthur was no hero. Arthur could do nothing but flee for his life and hope that, once outside the Ministry, he'd be able to call for help, if there was any to be found. But as he came to the end of the maintenance stairs and took in the sight before him, even that cowardly plan crumbled, in much the same way that the newly erected statue in the entrance hall (replacing the one that had been lost during the Voldemort Incident) lay in golden shards at the feet of a new statue, pieced together from parts of the ceiling, the pillars, the floor, and – Arthur tried his best to ignore it – flesh, bones, and scraps of clothing from the elderly wizard who had been on duty in the hall that night.

It depicted a richly robed witch. Which one was plain to see – the original Dark witch – She Who Must Not Be Named – Morgana, split apart from the waist up, opening like a poisonous flower to let loose a fountain of Origin light. Above her, sucking up the light, a sparkling Origin globe rotated slowly, growing larger by the second. Below her stood the artist, basking in the vicious blue of his creation.

He, or she, or it, was a queer fellow, or female, or asexual biped – a flaky elf with a fetish for black leather and undoubtedly painful piercings. Its considerable corpulence and short stature contributed to an overall impression of a loose spiky cannonball, filled with artistic aggression and – having spotted Arthur – good old-fashioned rage.

'WHAT?' it shrieked, revealing a mouth in need of some serious dental-care. 'You don't LIKE my MASTERPEEZE?' Its bulging eyes flashed blue and a pointed tooth plinked onto the floor. 'You INFIDEL!' Behind the elf, the tools of its trade rose, mimicking the motion of its emaciated, spidery hands.

At this point, Arthur had decided to abandon all hope of reasoning with the elf and instead focused on trying to convince his own two feet to move, preferably in the opposite direction.

* * *

Ron stared into space, but, in a break with literary tradition, his mind _wasn't_ elsewhere. It was right there, everywhere, in every nook and every cranny. Still, the blank gaze of his physical eyes perfectly reflected the bafflement of his exploring, expanded mind. He stared into so much space, so many places all at once, that he saw nothing clearly. A sense beyond vision had been activated, and Ron hadn't a clue what to do with it, how to process the information overloading his brain.

There were tunnels, cells, arches, thick iron bars, scratches, scorch-marks, decay, emptiness. This prison hadn't been closed down; it had been broken with one decisive blow. There had been an uprising, and then immediate abandonment, all exits sealed. All except one. He knew this because he could see it all, and his subconscious mind drew conclusions his conscious mind couldn't. And a word rose from the darkness: _Panopticon_. Total, centralised, one-way surveillance; Big Brother _might_ be watching, so be on your guard, _always_.

Rather than a central hub and spoke-like cells, this magical version let one single guard survey an entire prison from the safety of a once comfortable chair. And the prisoners would feel perpetually watched, even when no one manned this Pensieve-like device – this _Panopticieve_, the most insidious surveillance method in Wizard-dom.

Finding words like Panopticon – or, indeed, the newly coined Panopticieve – popping into his mind did nothing to reduce Ron's general state of bafflement. And when a great number of other obscure terms elbowed their way into his passive vocabulary without further explanation, he began sensing another presence in the Panopticieve. There were faint shadows of thoughts mingling with his; a mind of a more analytical disposition slowly merging with his muddled one; new vocabulary skipping about and making a right mess.

Surprisingly, it was not an altogether unpleasant experience.

* * *

The same could not be said for crawling down the sloping roof of a Tube train improperly hurled across a patch of African savannah. But the hyenas prowling through the high grass below, moving in and out of migrating patches of moonlight, certainly motivated the six scared humans to stay on the roof. Or rather, stay on the _roofs_ – which proved to be one of the expedition's major problems, seeing as each carriage had placed itself at a subtly different angle from the one preceding it. It kept everyone on their toes (in a strictly metaphorical sense, hands and knees being required to keep steady, and out of harm's laughing jaws).

Never before had Julia been pleased to see someone carrying cleverly concealed knives on the Tube. And she expected the same was true of the policeman guarding – and probably taking a good moonlit look at – her rear.

All in all, they were armed with two guns, three knives, two imposing hatpins, and pepper spray. The hatpins were the only weapons that didn't come onto the roof with an owner attached (though the grey-haired little lady _had_ volunteered for the mission, and would no doubt have tagged along if she'd been able to reach the safety-hatch by herself). The pepper spray was Julia's. Two large knives were up front, attached to black leather and a snarl that could kill a hyena's laughter.

Two athletic teenagers – a couple, no doubt – brought up the rear with a gun and legs that could kill both distance and sense. The third knife rattled against the roof as the brawny young businessman in front of Julia struggled to keep his bulk balanced. A real macho man – the first volunteer. _Her_ first volunteer. Her idea.

Since Tube trains don't commonly leap across continents of their own volition, whatever had whisked them from the bowels of London might still be found in the grove where they had first emerged. There, they might find a way back, a two-way passage. It was worth a try, seeing as logic had already flown out the cracking, battered windows. Because, naturally, the phones got no bloody signal. And _no_, no one had a satellite phone in their oversized backpack. They were on their own, and they had to _do_ something.

And she could hardly refuse to carry out her own plan.

Though perhaps she should have, embarrassment be damned. Better a coward than dead. And, on the other hand, better running for home and comfort than waiting for hyenas to overcome their fear of the Great Hollow Shiny Thing.

So often, heroics were just a subtle variation on good old-fashioned cowardice. Sure, they'd send help to their stranded comrades as soon as possible, but by that time, they themselves would be safe and sound, and very much not eaten. Supposing they got that far. Which seemed unlikely. The brutally ploughed path to the grove proved to be at least sixty feet of potentially lethal rough ground, primed for falls and tumbles and instant teeth at your jugular.

They spent a bullet on sending a warning. Three other hyenas leaped on the fallen one. It had clearly been a very dry season. Julia felt like manna from heaven, queasy and doughy-brained.

With the hyenas wary and distracted, the Grove Patrol touched ground, and ran.

* * *

Arthur's hands scraped against the stone walls of the maintenance staircase. Behind him, something rumbled and shrieked. And yet, as far as Arthur was concerned, it might as well have tap-danced and played the fiddle.

What he was running _from _had already been firmly established as lethally disagreeable, and no amount of tap-dancing could change that. What mattered now was where he was running away _to_. Unfortunately, the only destination available to him was a dead end otherwise known as the Department of Mysteries.

However, the very thing that had made him aware of the Origin siege now gave him an idea of how to escape it. The ring on Strange's finger was no sign of allegiance. Unlike Voldemort, the Origin had never gone in for any impractical and compromising branding of their forces. No, the ring was a transportation device – magic for Muggles, Apparition for dummies. The Origin and their associates had developed a number of such devices – magic and technology merged – to negate any advantage witches and wizard might have, and to give their own soldiers a strong upper hand once they themselves had sucked the battleground clean of natural magic.

The Ministry's researchers still hadn't figured out how to disable the ring that Arthur's grandfather had once acquired. Which, in retrospect, turned out to be one massive stroke of luck, for Arthur at least. Now, if only he could locate the ring before his pursuer located _him_ (no doubt intent on _dis_locating him altogether).

As he rushed through the entrance of the Department, the poorly patched-up statue of Morgana pulverised the remnants of the crashed lift and blasted its way through the doors.

* * *

Rather than flounder about in baffled wonderment, Hermione went about her exploration of the Deeper Dungeons in as methodical a manner as she could in her incorporeal state. She examined the layout of the intricate network of tunnels and cells, mapped and memorised blocked and flooded sections, and cross-referenced it all with what rudimentary knowledge she had of the infamous Hoghalls prison complex.

When it had been in use, it had rivalled and probably surpassed Azkaban in terms of security, though the comparison was a flawed one, Azkaban being Hoghalls' junior by several decades. Hoghalls had also held a far greater range of magical species, criminals of all shapes and sizes.

There had been a few failed escape attempts in the early days of the prison – _pre-Hogwarts castle_ – but for many decades no one even bothered to try, until the final mass exodus that put an end to Hoghalls, for all time. But the details had always been hazy.

Somehow, the inmates had found a way to make the security system – the Panopticieve – backfire, if the mummified watchwizard was anything to go by. With the prisoners breaking out of their cells all through the dungeons, a bloodbath was inevitable and only the guards on the upper levels survived, sealing off all exits in a futile attempt to control the situation.

Then, with the explosive help of some infamous dragon inmates, the prisoners blasted their way through solid rock and flew away, but not before bestowing a fatal farewell gift on their hated Hellhalls.

Through some sort of curse, the nature of which Hermione had never been able to ascertain, the prisoners made sure that if ever their exit was sealed off, or the cells closed, the castle Hogwarts would crumble and vanish. So now, Hoghalls was an entirely escape-proof prison. Escape was, in fact, guaranteed.

And it was this perpetual escape route Hermione sought as she let her mind pour into every part of the erstwhile prison. Following scorch-marks overgrown with lichen and massive gates thrown on the floors like misshapen arrows, she traced the path the fleeing prisoners had once ripped through Hoghalls. Swimming in a shimmering sea of extrasensory perception beyond anything she'd ever experienced, Hermione imagined herself following a yellow brick road, off to find the Exit, the wonderful Exit of Oz.

Drifting beside her, puzzled but reassured by her presence, was a Gryffindor lion who had long since found his courage. And as they reached the end of the road, a Slytherin tin man – whose heart's whereabouts were still unknown – reached in and yanked them both from their magical down under.

* * *

Either it had been a season of horrendous drought and fruitless hunting or the hyenas bringing the Grove Patrol down, one by one, were different somehow – bolder, wilder, deadlier, braving both guns and knives relentlessly, shrieking with mad laughter. It couldn't be natural, this terror-go-round circle of death. Weapons were meant to keep mankind in its very own circle of life, powered by ambition and greed and other such elevated emotions but separated from the grit and growling of the greater animal kingdom.

And yet here they were – hunted, prey, meat of the human kind. Going down. Pulled into high grass as dry as the dust stinging Julia's eyes, making the grove flicker before her. She had always been a fast runner, and even now she was winning the race. But the stakes had never been this high. Behind her, the young woman's vocal chords were ripped out, and the policeman went down with a cry of rage and a futile bullet to his attacker's head.

Julia fought an impulse to turn back. He, the policeman whose name she couldn't even remember, had told her to run and never look back. Someone had to reach the grove. That was the objective of the mission: Getting out and getting help.

And it should have been _him_, probably the least selfish of all the volunteers, genuinely seeking to help without coveting anything – not fame, not freedom – except possibly Julia's behind. And as for Julia, she didn't even _want_ to be there. She was an idea person, a marketing consultant who made others grow permanent false grins for the cameras she hid behind. But then, every once in a while, a complex job became important enough for her to do it herself, because Julia was a faithful subscriber to the idea that if you want something done properly, hold the whip yourself, don't delegate. And now, there was no one left to delegate to.

As the grove grew closer, it hit Julia, not for the first time that night, that pepper spray made for one measly whip.

* * *

Mad-Eye Moody was in a foul mood. He'd been reduced to kicking Death Eaters in the groin and, while usually enough to raise his mood above gloomy, there just wasn't time for such comic relief. Muggle mercenaries were closing in on all fronts and cooperation had to be the name of the game if they cared to keep _any_ Wizarding players on the magically drained board.

'D'ye get it, lad?' shouted Moody to the well inbred young man clutching his crotch and crossing his eyes. 'As much as I hate your guts,' he continued, illustrating this sentiment by applying great pressure to an older toff's well fed stomach, 'we have t'work together or yon other bastards'll sprinkle this garden with our blood, pure or no!'

'They're only _Muggles_,' sneered an older, more athletic yet equally non-descript black-clad Death Eater, knocking Moody to the ground.

Never one to pass up a silvery opportunity, Moody promptly swung his steel-capped boot into three parts very private Death Eater property. The man howled and toppled athletically over his young colleague.

From Moody's grittily grounded though somewhat muddied perspective, the fight raging around him looked an interminable mess, a tangle of kicking and clawing would-be fist-fighters who made up for inexperience with sheer raging hatred and an abundance of pointy sticks otherwise known – but now quite useless – as wands. It had to end, right now. Moody's hands crawled across the Muggle weapon slung over his shoulder. Akay-47, press to fire.

The unexpected recoil pressed Moody into the mud and painted a blood-red trail of exploding bullet-wounds from the young Death Eater's knee across his torso and straight through the side of his head. The booming smattering of the automatic and the peculiar sound of flesh-encased bone being shot to pieces brought everything else to a sudden dead stop. The young Death Eater, just as dead and quite permanently stopped, flopped messily into a large rosebush. Moody rose, the mechanical beast in his hand silent – but still in attack position.

Walter Goyle tore wide eyes from his neighbour's mutilated son to glare at Moody. 'You killed him!'

'Yes,' said Moody, pointing the 47 at the agitated man, 'and that's what them Muggles'll do to all of us, unless we work together! There ain't nothin' clean or proper about a Muggle death,' he indicated the body and bloodied rosebush, 'and we got no magical defences. Ye better face facts – that the _Muggles_ have the upper hand here – or _I'll_ do away with you right _now_.'

Watching the faces of both friends and foes register the fact that Moody was, in fact, the only one with a working – and quite lethal – weapon provided the old Auror with a perfect distraction from the fact that he'd just committed murder, however unintentional. He'd killed on battlefields before, but seeing someone crumple in a flash of green light was something quite different from watching a young man go to pieces before you.

The rosebush was adorned with pinkish tendrils of blond hair, fastened with blood and brain matter. Moody's gnarled finger twitched on the trigger.

'Well?' he growled. 'Anyone else feel like feedin' the plants? No? Then I suggest you stop wasting time on dirty looks and try to figure out which way Away is.'

'Away?' asked one of the junior Aurors.

'From the bastards I just signalled with this here loudmouth Muggle-wand,' said Moody, waving the gun about, enjoying the flinches this inspired in both subordinates and sub-ordinary Death Arses, and reflecting – briefly – on the fact that pushing aside thoughts of murder had brought inappropriate humour to the front of his mind.

Now that the fighting had stopped, there was time to properly take in his surroundings. And save for the odd corpse, these were rather attractive ones – a well-tended garden with a multitude of hedges and large bushes tinted greyish blue. To the north lay the mansion they'd just escaped. To the west was what appeared to be a large maze. To the south the garden faded into a more open layout with flowers, streams and ponds. And to the east lay some sort of large bower, verging on a small grove.

'Quiet,' hissed Moody, listening for sounds from the west. Footfalls on gravel. Bursts of speed. Lost in the maze. To the north, a door thrown open. Reinforcements sent out to locate the lost, and the escaped. To the east and the south, nothing.

'May I suggest the bower?' drawled Goyle. 'It seems the logical choice. Natural fortifications.'

'What?' exclaimed Sam Upwine, an experienced if somewhat stuffy Auror. 'Are we going to fend them off with pointy sticks?'

'Now, Sam,' said Moody, 'that _is_ what we usually do, innit?'

'But of course,' sighed Goyle, 'they're useless now. You're right, we should head for an exit. Maybe they'll work outside.'

'No,' said Moody, 'it's precisely _because_ they're useless that we're going to behave as if they weren't. Y'see, it's the _illogical_ choice.' His natural eye peered at Goyle while his other searched for advancing mercenaries. 'It might throw them off the track – confuse them.'

They all stared at him as if he were quite mad.

'See,' he grinned, 'it's got _you_ baffled, and you're at least as dumb as yon other bastards.'

* * *

'You didn't have to bloody flog me, Malfoy!' whined Ron, cradling his sore hand.

'Got you out, didn't it?' huffed Draco. 'Even if I _had_ wanted to touch your filthy extremities, _I'd_ have been pulled in too, and then we'd have been in a right mess, you dimwit!' he added, shuddering at a completely unwarranted mental inventory of available filthy extremities.

'What's that wand made of anyway?' asked Ron, glaring at the dark wood.

'African blackwood melded with ironwood. A bit like you, actually; really, really dense,' said Draco, dearly hoping _hardness_ wasn't another shared property. Though, really, Weasley didn't seem the type.

'Why's everything so damn hard with you, Malfoy? First a metal broom, now this.'

'Trust me,' muttered Draco, 'not everything is hard.' _Because you're certainly not _my_ type_.

'Oh, get a divorce,' huffed Hermione. '_Honestly_, the way you two carry on. We need to focus on getting off this level! I know how to get out of the actual prison, but I didn't have time to look for a way down. Ron?'

He started as her wide eyes focused on him. 'Huh?'

'Did _you_ see anything? You _were_ in there longer.'

Ron blushed at the thought of how utterly lost he'd been before she appeared. 'Ehm,' he said, closing his eyes and frowning deeply, 'I think, yes, I saw stairs, all closed off, but there was – a shaft – and some sort of metal grid.' He opened his eyes and grimaced. 'I'm sorry, but that's it.'

'Of course!' Hermione exclaimed, sparking hope in Ron's eyes. 'It must have been a dragon cell!'

'A what?' asked Draco, feeling peculiar twitches of claustrophobia shudder up his spine.

'A _dragon cell_!'

'Ah. A _dragon cell_. Great explanation, Granger. Whatever _would_ we do without you?'

* * *

Julia had never expected a background in junior hurdle-racing to be such a life-safer. Sure, it had helped her get together with that cute racer, which at the time had seemed a life or apocalypse sort of thing. But that it would help her keep ahead of a pack of starved hyenas while racing through a dark and recently brutalized African grove, _that_ had come as a complete surprise. Though certainly not an unpleasant one, even if everything else seemed painted in shades of doom.

She leaped onto the fallen tree, slid sideways and stumbled painfully to the ground on the other side. A large clearing opened up before her, and the moon shone on two other things that came as complete surprises.

However, their inherent degree of pleasantness remained to be seen.

The leading hyena scrambled onto the tumbled trunk.

Julia ran for the nearest ring.

* * *

The ring _had_ to be there somewhere, filed with all the other junk no one had been able to make use of since the Origin Wars. Arthur rummaged through well-filled boxes and independent little anarchistic heaps, finding all sorts of questionable crap, but no ring. Somewhere behind him, the statue of Morgana sauntered straight through yet another set of discordantly stocked shelves.

'Come come out out and pl-play, li-littlelittle man man,' chanted the two semi-independent parts of its mutilated head. 'Ma-magic-magic hasass abandon-don-doned youyou-You-ou are are all-all alone-lone-lonely lost-lost. Let-let meh-ee ta-take the-the pai-ai-ain away-ay.'

The twisted words were lost on Arthur, but the strange staccato rhythm rattled his nerves. If his heart were to beat any faster, it'd bounce off without him.

_Rhythm_.

_The sonic lab_. Hadn't someone had some wild theory about sounds at certain wavelengths jamming Origin technology? Some ambitious Muggleborn who sought to blend science and magic? Yes! Arthur had quite liked the fellow, in fact. Unfortunately, the Department Head hadn't, and the projects had all been cancelled – the sonic lab, among others, instantly thrown into disuse.

_The ring must still be there_.

'I-aye can can s-see you you,' said Morgana in a booming stage whisper, her voice echoing softly through the sonic lab to her left.

* * *

Dragons were never picky eaters. But too proud to be beggars, they decided to be choosers. And so, they chose young virgins, which was more a case of joining the latest trend in franchised human sacrifice than any illogically informed religious inclination on their part. Because dragons didn't _do_ religion.

But they did do business, and their deals with surrounding villages were almost universally profitable ones. In return for controlled urban renewal, rather than surprise village thoroughfares outlining the erratic progress of yet another manhunt, village councils paid the to them reasonable price of embarrassingly emancipated females (because dragons had no gynaecological skills to speak of, they could never tell a virgin from a whore) or sour spinsters (as for judging beauty, no human sacrifice was sufficiently into spikes and leather to arouse a single scale). In fact, they could have offered a monkey in a dress for all the difference it would have made to the dragon's menu. Because, really, anything goes, as long as it's soft enough to be chewed and – here's the catch – preheated with dragon-fire – their _own_ fire.

Properly heated, everything tastes the same to a dragon (presumably like chicken, which is code for a sort of culinary nothingness matched only by certain kinds of rapid food served by slow and selectively senile youths all across the known universe). For this reason, it's all about the foreplay, the hunts or the ritual sacrifices, the arguing over misunderstood side-orders. But take away a dragon's fire and you effectively sentence it to a slow and starving death. Or rather, slow and starving up to the point where it eats an unprepared dinner, is instantly poisoned, keels over and curses the local health inspector god

This is why dragons kept in prison mustn't have their fire extinguished if they're to be kept alive. However, dragon fire is a dangerous thing and no one in their right mind would open a cell door to offer food to an angry dragon (and they do tend to be rather miffed, for while dragons like living in caves and having their food brought to them, prison cells tend not to feature enormous piles of loot to sleep on – the loot in question typically being what got them into prison in the first place).

Thus, the Dragon Cell was designed when the Hoghalls board of governors realised that investing in research was, in the long run, cheaper than using disposable labour to bring food to the resident dragons.

At its most basic, the design involves two cells, one holding the dragon and another, some distance above, holding the dragon's food, a.k.a. organic waste headed for Tastes Like Fried Chicken land. Between the cells is a shaft into which the food is dropped, landing on a metal grille where it can be readily torched from below.

This grille wasn't added to ensure wryneck among the resident dragons but rather to avoid having to replace the straw on the floor after every barbecued meal. Because dragons didn't do well on cold stone floors, and a heap of straw was better than no heap at all.

Besides, burnt dragon stunk something vile.

* * *

The hyena reeked of death and decay, which was just as well, as it let Julia know where the beast was without having to turn to look at it. She had to see where she was running. One stumble and this deadly game of tag would be over in an instant. It would show her pursuer that she was weak, wounded, easy prey. One fall and all fear would be gone. The beast's fear, already losing the battle against famine, gone. Her fear, heightened for a few seconds and then, in death, gone.

But as it was, the hyena was wary enough to allow even her tired feet and mind to outrun and outsmart it. And there was only the one left. She'd done away with the rest, which was the source of the famished predator's fear. But it had learnt two things from seeing its fellows perish one by one: fear, and to avoid the great rings that stood at each end of the gleaming stones that stretched across the open ground.

Julia's first thought upon seeing the massive metal rings with their strange etchings, like circuits carved in stone, was that she'd stumbled into a movie, a sci-fi flick she'd seen a few years back, featuring a hot nerd and a very pretty bad guy. _Stargate_; she was pretty sure that was its name. In any case, the central prop in the movie was certainly one, and these rings, partly submerged in recently cleared ground, looked like not-too-distant cousins. But these didn't feature shimmering, pond-like edge-of-wormhole thingies, and there were no moving parts. Except for moving parts of hyena.

She'd run for the tracks - a piece of home, of London, of imagined safety, _stand clear of the closing doors_. But there were no doors to close. There was only the ring she ran through, huge and dark and, apparently, inactive. Unlike the ring at the other end of the tracks. It was the exact replica of the first – roughly the size of a Tube tunnel, she guessed – but its circuit carvings shone a fluorescent blue. Though its centre seemed as empty as that through which the pack of hyenas now pursued her, it was clearly active, and the only logical conclusion – what with the entire train being whisked off to Africa in an instant – was that this worked rather like an Earth-based stargate, a doorway home. She ran towards it. She ran through it. The African wilderness remained, as inhospitable as before. The leading hyena leapt through the ring.

There was no time to consider different strategies or routes, Julia just ran right, around the ring at the same time as the pack charged through it. She would have run in the opposite direction if it weren't for the thickness of the surrounding grove. The only way to run was back where she came from. But the tail end of the pack, not yet through the ring, diverted to cut off her exit. She stopped, looking frantically about her, trapped. The lead hyenas turned about and ran through the ring again. Only, they didn't, not quite. They vanished into thin air, three of them. A fourth had stopped halfway through to the other side but was turning to follow Julia's progress. It shouldn't have.

In turning about, the front end of the animal now entered the ring again, but from the other direction, the one the vanished threesome had been headed in. By the time its nose and head started to fade abruptly out of existence, Julia had it figured: the ring was a one-way system. Things, like her train, exited onto the rails, but entered from the other end, just as the other ring would undoubtedly have worked, had it been active. And so, as half of the hyena was transported to an unknown elsewhere, or even nowhere, the part on the rails remained.

It was sudden, silent, and terribly messy. The remaining four hyenas forgot about Julia, just long enough for her to formulate a crude plan.

She ran circles around the ring, stopping and turning at just the right time for the hyena closest to the ring to figure that running back through would be a shortcut to its prey. Two had vanished like that, running towards the tracks, when a third pounced from the opposite direction, sailing through the ring towards her, jaws open. There was no escape. Julia aimed a high kick at the hyena. Halfway through the ring, its head snapped back, Julia's shoe snagged on its lower teeth. She fell to the ground as the hyena hit the invisible event horizon. The circuits flashed blue and white as the beast was sliced sideways, Julia being dragged across the ground towards the ring, her heel fading.

She yanked her foot back, expecting her heel to be pulled right off, but it came out whole, with only a bit of what she assumed was hyena gums dangling from it. Not having time to figure out exactly how the transport worked, Julia simply figured it was some sort of safety mechanism, and left it at that. The one remaining hyena, creeping warily around to her side of the ring, figured the whole ring was as far from safe as it could get, and would have nothing more to do with it.

Thus, there was one the crude plan would never work on. And Julia could only run in circles and zigzag patterns, till the hyena decided she was no longer a threat. Which was not an option she was willing to consider. She had to get away. But back the way she came from was no longer an option, even if a single hyena would be hard pressed to surround her, because the ring was the only thing keeping the beast at bay.

Only one other way to go. Into the unknown, and possible nothingness.

She took a deep breath, and charged through the event horizon.

* * *

Hermione's knowledge of the finer points of dragon cells was shaky at best. She had only ever heard of them once, in a silly book called A Hundred Terribly Outdated Yet Marginally Amusing Devices, where the article on the dragon cell had as its sole purpose some stupid joke about dragon-fuelled indoor barbecues. But she had been visiting the Weasleys, and there were few books in their modest library she hadn't already read. Which, in retrospect, was a major stroke of luck for this escaping text addict.

What she did know about this unusual type of cell was enough to sketch a simple plan for getting to the Deeper Dungeons, formerly Hoghalls Prison, through the dragon cell's surprisingly wide food shaft. Standing at the edge of the dark abyss, she reflected on the fact that food lifts and food shafts were such an unsettlingly returning theme running through her plotless night of horror that she was starting to feel like a runaway monster meal – the Fourth Little Pig: Cutlet. It was making her quite queasy.

The plan involved a coordinated jump onto the metal grille below, hoping the rust that had jammed the chain release in the storage room would have turned the hinges fragile enough to make the grille fall into the cell below, followed by an erratically dressed trio of teenagers - Hermione flanked by two shivering, half-naked boys. Their robes were thrown onto the grille to ease their landing and avoid their legs getting stuck. The last thing they needed were broken bones. Bruises were, on the other hand (and probably the first one too) guaranteed.

Hermione herself remained fully clothed, a perk of being the one to come up with the plan, _and_ being a feminist radiating feline rage at the very suggestion of equal undress. This left Ron in a t-shirt and long johns – which, Hermione told herself, shouldn't be remotely sexy, which was the _sole_ reason she avoided looking in his direction, thankyouverymuch – and Malfoy in only a pair of skimpy silk boxers, which really oughtn't to be looked at either, but as she wouldn't look at Ron and every other direction was frankly depressing, what harm could it do, really?

Malfoy, in his turn, had complained loudly that this part of the plan was only an excuse for Hermione to ogle his noble arse, at which suggestion Ron had snorted derisively, and Hermione had been rather too quick and adamant in her denial, privately deciding she needed to have a serious talk with herself, and a good long lie-down.

That is, _if_ she ever got out of this alive.

* * *

There was no CG tunnel sparkling around her, no rollercoaster ride through a winding wormhole, no sense of being flushed down the universe's newly cleaned toilet. In fact, for all of two seconds, Julia experienced mild disappointment at the total lack of sensation involved in stepping through the gate-ring. Then she took in the enormous snake-like beast before her, its head rearing up towards the Tube tunnel's ceiling, its body crackling with blue light, and the spider-like creatures, ranging from fist-size to Belgian Blue, crawling on and around the massive basilisk.

Not that Julia had any idea _what_ the snake was called, or indeed what it was. If she had, she'd have averted her eyes. As it was, she stared, and was petrified, though surprisingly enough for completely natural reasons.

The basilisk hissed. Behind her, the hyena, crazed with hunger, burst through the event horizon. The basilisk lunged.

* * *

section one  
section two 

Arthur ducked as yet another blast of blue light turned the shelves behind him into rubble and dust. Despite the mess they invariably created in the wake of the statue's destruction, the masses of shelves and boxes in the archive had proven Arthur's only viable protection. Compared to Morgana's mutilated likeness, he was small and agile and could dodge between piles of boxes and run through tunnels formed by leaning sets of shelves. Morgana, on the other hand, had to clear the rubble before she could pass. On yet another strong hand, she was rather too good at clearing up. And she was one cleaning lady who didn't mind killing a mouse, or weasel, in the process.

He had led her away from the sonic lab, taking advantage of her straightforward approach to archive cleaning, and there was now a clear, wide path leading straight to the lab. All he had to do was get past Morgana, and keep her occupied for as many seconds as possible.

Desperately needing the element of surprise, Arthur turned about so fast his knees felt as though they would break. He raced forward and hit a large set of shelves with full force, just before the statue reached them. The shelves fell. Morgana staggered backwards, getting no leverage to smash the shelves, her light-wielding arms aimed awkwardly at the ceiling. Arthur jumped aboard. Both shelves and statue groaned as he clambered to the top. A geyser of Origin energy erupted before him.

'You can't keep that up,' he muttered, more to himself than the enraged statue.

The geyser ran out of light. Arthur jumped, and his knees took another, even worse beating. Morgana heaved the shelves off her disturbed person as Arthur bolted for the lab. He heard her turning before the first energy bolt shot his way and began running in an erratic zigzag pattern, dodging bolt after bolt. After all, there was very _effectively_ cleared space available for such a manoeuvre. Inside Arthur, a rarely seen part of his personality cackled maliciously, giving Morgana the Wizarding equivalent of a mental finger.

He burst into the sonic lab. There was the ring, still precariously perched atop a crystal pyramid at the centre of one of the bulbous blue sound chambers. Arthur yanked the chamber door open. The doorway to the lab groaned as the statue tried to force its way in. A futile effort.

Arthur approached the pyramid, for the first time considering that he hadn't a clue _how_ to use the ring. He hesitated, pondering. Then he noticed the silence, and the scrabbling sound behind, as if from a very large rat. He turned about just in time to see a gnarled old hand launch itself at his leg, clutching tight. It was crudely yet solidly attached to a thick rope of semi-artificial bones and tendons. No doubting where it came from.

'Gotgot youyou!'

As the statue tried to reel him in, Arthur braced himself against the chamber's doorway, stretching out a hand towards the ring. _Too far, much too far_. His leg felt as if it would be torn straight off, and incorporated into the wicked statue.

Then something else came back to him from his brief friendship with the Mad Muggleborn. _Sonic waves_, or something along those lines. He'd demonstrated. The sound chambers were very impressive, Arthur remembered, and then he screamed.

It wasn't a scream of terror. Not as such. But anyone listening to it might well have mistaken it for the mating call of the common Damsel in Distress. Arthur had never thought he could hit a note that high. On the other hand, he'd never felt inclined to try, and he wasn't about to share his newfound talent with anyone any time soon, least of all his wife, whose similar vocalisations he'd mocked on several occasions.

But it did the trick. The chamber reverberated, the pyramid trembled, and the ring fell. Arthur was amazed at his luck when it decided to roll down the proper side too. But now, _he_ had to get it.

Taking a deep breath, Arthur let go, throwing himself forward and down while being hauled backwards by Morgana. He grasped frantically for the rolling ring, and, and, and – _got it_. But the way he was sliding through the lab, bouncing against tables and boxes, putting it on was no mean feat.

But on it went, and some part of Arthur's mind saw beyond his basic desire to escape, remembered the need for a warning to be sent. The Ministry was under siege! He had to tell Dumbledore! He slid through the doorway—

—and into his own office.

It took a few seconds for him to realise where he was and uncurl from the foetal position Morgana's imminent attention had inspired. He staggered to his feet and glanced at the blue ring on his finger. So that was how it worked.

Now, to contact Dumbledore. That _was_ why his conscience had brought him here, wasn't it? And the light was still burning. He picked a leaf from the withered little plant on his desk and fed it to the flame. Then he touched it.

'Yes?' asked the disembodied voice of Dumbledore. 'Have there been any – complications, Arthur?'

'Origin,' Arthur stammered, out of breath. 'They've got the Ministry under siege.'

'Oh, dear.'

And that was the last Arthur heard, before a soft whooshing noise made him turn around, taking his finger out of the flame.

'Well, well,' said Chief Inspector Strange, standing in the doorway, gun in hand, 'Mr Weasley. A Combusticator _and_ a Transport ring? One might almost think you were one of our people. But then again, your blatant stupidity rather spoils the impression, doesn't it?'

* * *

'Dear Draco,' murmured Draco, causing his unwilling companions to wonder whether he might have hit his head rather badly as they fell in a heap onto the dragon cell's stone floor. 'You seem to find yourself repeatedly in compromising positions with Gryffindors this night. Please cease this impropriety immediately. Disrespectfully, yourself. _PS_. Mr. Weasley really should not put his pauper's hands on the Malfoy family heirlooms.'

'It's not voluntary!' hissed Ron between gritted teeth.

'So you say, you poor person pervert you.'

'I'm stuck!'

'I've noticed.'

'I can't get it off!' growled Ron, his pinned arm twitching and causing horribly inappropriate behaviour in the Malfoy heirlooms, calling into question the veracity of the surely unintentional connotations of Ron's angry assertion.

Draco rolled his eyes and bit back the quip that would otherwise have leapt off his tongue, had it been someone else's private property on the ridicule market.

Hermione, however, didn't have any such compunctions. A loud snigger erupted somewhere above Draco's left shoulder. It rapidly escalated into hysterical laughter, and the hint of underlying meows and purrs made Ron and Draco rather more uncomfortable than they already were, lying pinned beneath Hermione and a metal grille that had proven less easily dislodged than they'd thought.

Draco sighed. 'Weasley, help me push.'

And so, in a rare fit of cooperation, Draco and Ron forced Hermione and the grille off their persons, jumped up, put on their robes, and purposely forgot any and all accidental trespasses onto aristocratic private parts. Meanwhile, Hermione staggered to her feet, still giggling, and looked around for a door. She found it in the tunnel outside, where it had embarked on an afterlife as a small indoor jetty, its considerable thickness putting it a full inch above the black water.

'Who left the tap running?' said Ron as he stepped out beside Hermione.

'It's the lake. We're below it. Must be seeping in somewhere.'

'Great,' muttered Ron. 'If those monsters don't get us, we can drown as rats instead. _Nice_.' He shuddered theatrically.

Malfoy joined them on the door, dusting off his robe and muttering about how Malfoys could never drown as anything as common as a rat. Hermione, for her part, felt more likely to die a cat than a rat, and any present rodents should count themselves lucky not to end up a Last Supper. She was _famished_. And clearly in need of therapy.

Hermione splashed her way down the tunnel. 'This way,' she called.

'How do you know?' asked Draco, staring apprehensively at the dirty water.

'I'm me,' said Hermione, sloshing onwards and smelling far too many meals scurrying down the sides of the tunnel to give a damn _what_ she was saying. 'I know _everything_.'

'She does, you know,' said Ron matter-of-factly and pushed Draco off the door.

'Oh, shut up, you romantically deluded rodent.'

'Fuck you, ferret-boy!'

'In your dreams and my nightmares.'

* * *

In death, the hyena did Julia the unintentional favour of saving her life, at least for a while. As it was flung against the tunnel's wall and fell onto one of its erstwhile comrades in teeth, Julia stumbled backwards through the transport ring. But she remained in the tunnel. One-way travel. _Right_. The basilisk and its spidery henchbeings turned their attention back towards her.

Racing down the tunnel with the loud swish-swish scrape of the basilisk and the rapid patter of the spiders behind her, Julia ran into two old friends coming the other way at full speed. The hyenas halted, almost falling over themselves, as they saw what _new_ unwanted company she kept. Julia ran past them.

Up ahead she saw the roaring reason for the hyenas' panicked flight. A deep blue dragon crouched behind yet another transport ring. But no spiders this time, and the dragon seemed disinclined to attempt exaggerated motion within the cramped confines of the tunnel.

As the hyenas joined her on either side, Julia found unlikely support in her assumption that the dragon was, in fact, the lesser of two evils. She pushed herself yet harder. The dragon reared up, its breast swelling. _Ready to fire_.

She had to reach the ring before the flames. There was another ring behind the dragon, so this had to be the transport side of the closest ring. _It had to be_.

Or she was literally fried.

A huge spider dropped down before her. The hyena to her left leapt at it, biting and clawing frantically. Neither Julia nor the second hyena stayed to help in the futile effort. Just a few feet to the ring. Behind them, the noises died down. _Fire, the universal deterrent_.

The dragon's flame exploded towards them, but they couldn't have stopped if they wanted to, and the hyena probably did. The fire surged through the ring, enveloping Julia for a brief second before she burst into wet darkness. She staggered forward, beating out what small fires had managed to take hold on her clothing and in her hair, while the drizzle helped quench those out of her reach.

There was much commotion around her, the smoking hyena howling somewhere to her left and a multitude of male voices clamouring for attention. A black-clad man burst from the darkness to grip her arm painfully.

'They're using the rings!' he exclaimed, raising his right arm to stab her with a small pointed stick.

She screamed and shielded her face, but the man was shoved aside before he could do any real damage. Gentler, but somehow stronger, hands gripped her shoulders.

'Relax, lass,' soothed a gruff old voice. 'Unlike that there arse, I can tell ye're not the enemy. But, listen now, I _need_ to know—'

She took her arms from her face and looked at the man's face, which proved much less comforting than his voice. And his large, rolling eye could have rattled anyone.

'—_where_ did ye come from?' finished Mad-Eye Moody.

And Julia, overcome with exhaustion and fear, fainted in his arms.

* * *

Eventually, Draco gave up trying to smear the dust on his robe into more attractive patterns, deciding that dust doesn't look remotely appealing, even on a Malfoy.

'What I don't understand,' he muttered as he tried to will himself to walk on dirty water, 'is why they didn't just use _magic_ to get the food in, instead of that filthy contraption.'

'Then _we'd_ have been stuck,' said Hermione. 'Besides, magic was blocked within the prison. Safety precaution. Not quite sure _how_ they blocked it though.'

Ron snorted. 'Probably invited some Origin bastards over for tea.'

'_That's it!_' exclaimed Hermione, making Ron flinch and Draco fall off the tiny ledge he'd been balancing on. They all stopped. 'That's why they installed food lifts and other Muggle-style devices! They wanted the castle to keep working under Origin siege!' She frowned. 'But what I can't understand is why _Hogwarts: A History_ would make no mention of it.'

'That,' said Draco, sounding every bit the snooty, waterlogged aristocrat, 'is because your precious _Pigprotuberances: The Tedious Tale_ is so bloody politically correct it tries to convince people the Deeper Dungeons were originally added as extra storage space! And it certainly doesn't mention what _Other Species_ were detained and _dissected_ here,' he huffed. 'Oh, stop looking like your going to be sick all over my delightfully dusty robes, Weasel.'

Anxious to get the discussion back on track, and to avoid Ron and Malfoy coming to blows, Hermione said 'But why would anyone want to erase the Origin from Wizarding history?'

'Isn't it obvious?' said Draco, getting two dark scowls in reply. 'People don't like to be reminded that there have been _wars_ fought over the alleged enslavement of an entire race – where their ancestors were effectively fighting on the side of slavery. And people certainly don't want to think about the Origin having the power to strip them of all their magical abilities.'

Ron looked like one giant question-mark, and while Hermione fought a sudden urge to straighten it into an erect and excited exclamation-mark, he asked the question that should have been on her mind. 'But why haven't they – been around then?'

Draco shrugged. 'Nobody knows. After the last war, they vanished, and no one felt particularly inclined to look them up. Most Wizarding places have had protection against the Origin for centuries – like Hogwarts – but there have been rumours about attacks outside those areas – all unverified, because no one has ever survived, of course. Stop making that horrid face Weasley! Oh, wait, it's _natural_, isn't it? I _am_ sorry. Truly.'

Ron _was_ looking rather queasy, Hermione observed, unlike Malfoy who merely looked mildly rattled, though who knew what went on behind the mask. Hermione herself had moved beyond feelings of illness and fear several severe shocks before. But although her feelings were numbed, her mind was keen, if somewhat twitchy. She narrowed her eyes at Malfoy.

'How come _you_ know so much about the Origin?'

'My father is an expert,' he answered, his open gaze challenging her suspicion.

'Figures,' muttered Ron.

'And besides, I _am_ pureblood,' Draco added, as if his lineage held the answers to life, the universe, and everything. 'Which,' he explained, seeing their perplexed expressions, 'has nothing to do with blood, per se. Or our – what _is_ that you call it? – _yen-ticks_? It's a saying; like that stupid thing Muggles say about _blue blood_. At least _we_ don't claim to have ink in our veins. We _are_ pure, but we are pure _Origin_. And since people don't want to talk about the Origin… Well, blood's always a cosy little subject for the aristocratic dinner table, isn't it?' He stopped suddenly, and '_Especially if your guests are all Death Eaters_' found itself floating unsaid through already crowded air.

Hermione stared. She couldn't help it. '_You_ are Origin?'

Ron edged away from Malfoy, eyeing him warily.

'Purebloods aren't Origin,' said Draco, '_as such_. What we _are_—'

'What you _are_,' growled a man's voice from out of the darkness, 'are _traitors_!'

to be continued

* * *

I'd love a comment, y'know. *hinthint* 

I can make no promises as to when the next chapter will be posted. My guess would be sometime during July or August, but I've been wrong before, as evidenced by the lateness of this chapter. I also have a literary essay to finish this summer, so it depends on how smoothly that goes. 

Meanwhile, it may interest you to know that I post my drafts to my livejournal, f-locked; usually one scene at a time. The first half of this chapter has been posted in bits and pieces since the beginning of April, and the same will likely be the case with chapter eight. So, if you're impatient and don't mind reading drafts, friend away. ;) 

kayen.livejournal.com 


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